What could I do? What were my strengths?
I could hit the ball hard. And flat. And deep. I could push the other girl around the court by taking the ball early. I loved returning an opponent’s serve, especially her second serve. There’s nothing like taking a few steps in from the baseline for that second serve. I already had big-time power, even as an eighteen-year-old. Now and then, my forehand could get a little dodgy, but, thanks to my coaches and opponents, it’s improved a lot over the years. But my backhand was—and is—my money shot, backhand down the line, the one I love to hit. Maybe because by nature I’m (probably) a lefty, I can hit that shot all day. And my serve—it was a great part of my game back then, a crucial weapon. I could hit a hard serve exactly where I wanted it. It would change—but more on that later. And stamina. And focus. I had a surplus in all those categories. And my greatest strength is probably my will. I will not quit.
What couldn’t I do? What were my weaknesses?
Speed. I didn’t have it. I wasn’t a fast person, wasn’t a great runner. I didn’t have a quick first step running to a drop shot, and I could be sloppy going from side to side. I was not terrific moving up to the net. It was like something was keeping me away. And even when I got going, it was one step forward, two steps back.
Knowing and accepting these weaknesses turned out to be the most important part of my development. It meant that I could steer matches away from my deficiencies and toward my strengths. After so many years, the coaching and strategy made absolute sense. With a good plan, I could dictate with my strengths. It was during that 2004 season that I really began to put it all together. I’m not sure why it happened at that particular moment—maybe that’s just how the mind works. You don’t get it, and you don’t get it, and you don’t get it, until one day: you get it. That’s when I began winning match after match. That’s when, and this gave me special satisfaction, I beat both Serena and Venus Williams in the same year.
I played Serena in the final of the WTA Championship at the Staples Center in L.A. It was the end of the season. We played on a blue court. I’d begun to relax. Maybe that’s why I did so well. This was some of the best tennis of my life. I lost the first set but I won the match. Not many people will remember it—it aired, on the East Coast, in the middle of the night—but I will never forget it. What do you get to keep when you quit the game? Trophies, some money? It has to be memories of those few perfect matches, those days when everything went just right—when every serve landed exactly where you wanted it and every ball hummed. Even now, that’s what I feel when I close my eyes at night and wait to fall asleep. The jolt that goes all through your body when you hit it just right, the happy exhaustion of the endless rallies, the last few shots and the winner that ends it all, and how you felt when you got back to the locker room knowing that whatever reserves you’d had in physical and spiritual strength had been spent on the court and your mind was empty and your body was drained and satisfied.
I remember walking off the court after the last match of the season. My friend Sophie was waiting and she smiled and said, “Do you realize what you did this year? You won Wimbledon and the season-end championship.”
In the summer of 2005, not long before the start of the U.S. Open, I learned that my father’s dream had come true. When the new rankings came out, I was number one in the world. I knew I was getting close, that I had a shot, but still, you never believe it until you wake up on that Monday morning and pull up the new rankings list on the tour’s Web site. The rankings are based on a system. All year, as you travel on the tour, you accumulate points. A certain number for reaching the round of sixty-four, a certain number for the round of thirty-two, for the round of sixteen, and so on. These numbers are amped up during major tournaments. Reach the quarters or semifinals of a Grand Slam, you are talking about serious points. Win a Grand Slam and it’s like the cherries on the slot machine line up and out pour the coins.
A new ranking list is published every week. It has to do with how well you’ve performed, and also how many tournaments you’ve entered, and how well other players have performed. In other words, I never really know. It’s a complicated system. You’d need a doctorate from MIT to understand exactly what’s going on. I’d been ranked as high as number four, and, really, the difference between number four and number one might be the difference between flying to Japan to compete in some small tournament and laying off for a week to rest your shoulder. From the beginning of my career, I’ve planned schedules that I believed would best prepare me to peak at the Grand Slams. I never thought of adding tournaments to that schedule to gain extra points for a better ranking. And that continues to be the way I plan—Grand Slam–focused, not rankings-focused. And yet hitting number one is special and thrilling. I was surprised by my reaction. I didn’t think I would care that much, but I was wrong. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. As long as I held that ranking, I was the best female tennis player in the world.
All these years, this is what I’d dreamed about and what I’d been working toward, and now it had happened. Number one. Think of all the great players who’d held this spot before me! Billie Jean King. Martina Navratilova. Steffi Graf. I was now part of an elite club—that could never be taken away.
But the feeling did not last. Maybe just as long as it took me to finish breakfast, look at my phone, and head out to the courts. There is always another tournament, another winner, and another reckoning of points. There is always another girl, a crowd of other players, working, at this moment, to take your place.
As happy as I was, and I’m not entirely sure that this was happiness, my father was ecstatic. Number one? It was something he’d dreamed about and worked for since those first afternoons in Sochi, when Yudkin, crazy czar of the clay courts, told my father I had it in me to be among the best in the world. “But what are you willing to give?” Yudkin had asked my father. “Because this will mean giving up everything and changing your life.”
What troubled me was that I was still missing that essential thing—a second Grand Slam championship. It kept eluding me, making me sort of jumpy and nuts, aware everyone was looking at me, thinking, “Sure, she won once but it might have been a fluke, an accident, even luck. Can she win that big again? That’s the question.” As I entered the 2006 season, it was about the only thing on my mind. Being ranked number one is not enough—I had to prove that I deserved to be ranked number one. I had to win that second Grand Slam.
I had my game face on when I reached Melbourne for the 2006 Australian Open. I wanted to get going immediately. I wanted to shut up the skeptics, gossips, and doubters. I wanted to earn my top rank right there at the start of the season. I flew through the early rounds, defeating each of my opponents—Sandra Klösel, Ashley Harkleroad, Jelena Kostanić Tošić, Daniela Hantuchová—in straight sets. I faced Nadia Petrova, a Russian girl who’d always given me trouble, in the quarterfinals, and beat her. I was like a sprinter flying down the track. Nothing could stop me—until I ran into the wall, as eventually happens to everyone, even sprinters. In my case, it was the small, tough, relentless, mosquito-like Belgian player Justine Henin.
My game had not matched up well against Henin. She exposed my weaknesses better than any player. She makes you move, move, and move. No matter what you hit, or where, she anticipates its direction and gets it back, which is why I’ve compared her to a flying, stinging insect. You slap it and think you’ve got it, but when you look down you realize she’s gotten through your fingers and here comes another ball. I always keep my philosophy basic: I do not have to be the best player in the world to be the best player in the world. I just have to be a little bit better than the other player on that particular day. Henin’s philosophy is seemingly simpler stilclass="underline" If I just hit the ball at her one more time than she hits the ball at me, I win, which can make for a long, grueling match. And that one-handed backhand slice! Even when I’ve beaten her, she’s made me look bad and worn me out. I would go to sleep with her one-handed backhand staring me down. Before she retired in 2011, Henin spent 117 weeks ranked number one in the world and won seven Grand Slam titles, which puts her among the all-time leaders.