A few years ago, my friend Chelsea Handler flew in to watch me play at the London Olympics. She doesn’t follow tennis, and much preferred her Pimm’s cup to anything that might happen on the courts. But when Serena comes out to play our gold medal match—and she is 100 percent Serena—Chelsea looks her over, turns to my coach, and says, “What’s your game plan there?” And that’s exactly how I felt when I got onto the court with Serena for the first time. “What’s my game plan here?” First of all, her physical presence is much stronger and bigger than you realize watching TV. She has thick arms and thick legs and is so intimidating and strong. And tall, really tall. I looked across the net, and, no way to get around it, she was just there! More there than other players, if that makes sense. It’s the whole thing—her presence, her confidence, her personality. She seemed much older than me in Miami. This was just before I turned seventeen. She was a grown woman, experienced, the best player in the world. It still feels that way. Even now, she can make me feel like a little girl.
As soon as you start playing, you realize it’s her confidence you have to deal with. You need to dent it if you are to have any shot at winning. Yes, there is the serve and the ground strokes and the game, but it’s also her attitude that defeats you. She looks across the net with something like disdain, as if you are unimportant and small. It’s a game face, of course, but it works. I’d met my match in intimidation. Then there is her temper, which can be hot and unpredictable. She is not afraid to scream, throw her racket, bitch at the refs about calls she doesn’t like. It’s interesting at first, then it gets irritating. Irritating in a way that might be intended—it lets her blow off steam and fills most opponents with rage. She behaves as if she is the only player out there, the only person who counts. And you? You are a speed bump. You are a zero. Many great players have this mentality. Serena Williams just has it more. The best way to deal with people like this—I’ve learned from experience—is with composure, a maddening composure and a stately calm. It drives them bat-shit crazy.
Serena won that match, but I realized that if I kept working I’d get close to her level. Maybe I also put some doubt in her mind. There were stretches when I felt like I could handle her depth, power, and speed. A spectator new on the scene would have had trouble, on some of those points, telling the champion from the rookie. For me, it was like facing a fear. That’s the thing about champions—they rely to some extent on your fear of them. It’s a bubble that protects them. When that is pierced, anything is possible.
I left for Europe a few days later. I wanted to train and acclimate myself to clay before the European season began. IMG arranged for me to take up a kind of short-term residence at the Juan Carlos Ferrero Academy in Villena, Spain. There were a couple of other pro players, staying in the cabanas and playing on the courts, including the namesake of the academy, a local hero named Juan Carlos Ferrero. In those few weeks, watching Ferrero train, watching him come and go, seeing how he talked and handled himself, how he brushed his hair away from his eyes, I developed a serious crush.
Ferrero—retired now, in his late thirties—was lanky, not too tall, with tousled hair, dark but dyed blond, and warm, mischievous eyes. He’d been playing tennis since he was too young to know if he wanted to play, like the rest of us, but something about him seemed removed, above, calm and cool. He’d won the French Open the previous season, 2003. The picture taken of him after the last point stuck in my head. It was an image of accomplishment, joy, and release. When you win, you finally get to let go of all that tension and stress—that’s what it looked like. You finally get to live in the moment instead of in the moment after this moment, when the next shot still has to be returned. I must have seen the picture in the newspaper—on some front page, or tossed behind a seat on some airplane. Ferrero has just won the match. The ball is probably still moving just beyond the frame, rolling lazily toward the vanquished player, Martin Verkerk. Juan Carlos had fallen to his knees and is looking toward the sky, as if to thank whoever up there is in charge of tennis Grand Slams. It stayed with me, that celebration. I always mimic the gestures of the people I admire. I don’t mean to. It just happens. Maybe it’s a way of saying thanks.
In 2004, Ferrero was twenty-three and I was sixteen. I mean, in most countries, that’s not even legal. What can I say? The heart wants what the heart wants. I used to monitor him, watch him come and go. I used to plot and plan. I’d stand at the window of my cabana, behind a closed curtain, peeking out, keeping track of his every move. Here was the big problem. Juan Carlos had a girlfriend! She was probably the nicest girl in the world, but how could I see her as anything other than the reality that undermined my dreams? When they stood together, all cute, I was reminded that I was the silliest thing in the world—a kid with a crush.
Yuri knew none of this. Of course, when I actually got a chance to talk to Ferrero, I was polite and goofy and shy. But he must have known. I later found out that everyone in that Spanish academy in fact did know. I guess I’d been following him around like a lost puppy. I appreciate how he handled himself, the gentle and serious way he treated me, never making me feel anything less than grown-up and important, while also letting me know in his easy way that it could never happen.
There were a number of small tournaments that spring, played to build up our confidence, timing, and endurance. It’s all a prelude to the French Open, like an overture. You arrive in Paris in May, the best time of year in the city. The grounds of the arena, Roland Garros, are a kind of dream, the intimate stadium of center court, the colorful green banners that encircle the arena contrasting with the red clay, the crowds. I came in as the nineteenth seed. The top spots were occupied by, number one, Justine Henin, and number two, Serena Williams. Henin had won the French Open the previous year. She was one of the best clay court players of all-time, if not the best. It felt like there wasn’t a ball she wasn’t capable of getting back, especially on clay. She would drive me crazy, the way she kept sending every perfect shot I made back over the net with precision.
Henin did not have height or power, but none of that mattered here. The French Open does not favor power the way the U.S. Open and even Wimbledon do. In Paris, it’s all about fitness and finesse. On a dry day, the red clay is hard and cool. The game is fast then, and power can be a factor, but if there is the slightest drizzle or humidity, the clay absorbs the moisture and then everything gets boggy and slow. The surface turns to soup and the points wind down and the clay holds up even the flattest, hardest stroke. Playing in those conditions is a question of persistence and experience. The pros who grew up on this surface feel its rhythm and know when to stop and slide, how to skid into a ball. They excel when it rains or has rained or will rain, which is usually the case at least once in the course of a tournament. The French Open has a way of doing in even great players. Jimmy Connors. John McEnroe. Martina Hingis. Venus Williams. None of them have won the French Open.
I beat Barbara Schwartz in straight sets in the first round, dropping just three games. She was an Austrian who had this one-handed, left-handed backhand that was never fun to play against. Second round? Straight sets again, this time over the Italian Rita Grande. I lost just two games. All the work I had done in the academy in Spain was paying off. I felt stronger on this surface than I’d ever felt before. The third round was a little more difficult. I faced another Russian, Vera Zvonareva, in this round. I might have won that match in straight sets, but something about her game made me uneasy, uncomfortable—as if we might always finish the match deep in the third set. It was straight sets again in the fourth round, this time over the German Marlene Weingärtner, known mostly for her stunning match with Jennifer Capriati at the 2003 Australian Open. She’d been down 6–4, 4–1, and somehow she came back to win. That was her moment.