LONDON (AP) — Looking back, it seems perfectly understandable that it took Serena Williams some time to settle her nerves in her first singles match in nearly four years.
Rennae Stubbs, one of Williams' coaches, pin-pointed a moment about an hour into the 44-year-old's defeat to an opponent less than half her age earlier this week at Wimbledon.
“I noticed in the middle of the second set her take a big sort of deep breath and I actually turned around
to Venus and said, ‘Oh I think she just relaxed,’” Stubbs said, referring to Serena's older sister.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday, Stubbs also revealed that she first started coaching Williams again in March and immediately noticed that the 23-time Grand Slam champion could still play.
Williams was beaten 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 by 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia on Tuesday.
While the result on the court was a loss, the reaction in the locker room from other players and coaches was a resounding victory, according to Stubbs.
“They know what it would be like to be in that position of not playing a match for close to four years, going on Centre Court at Wimbledon, knowing there’s how many millions of people around the world watching this match,” Stubbs said. “There’s 15,000 people in Centre Court. They expect good tennis. They expect you to not embarrass yourself. So all the players know, to a small degree, what it must be like.”
The match set ratings records on ESPN and Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic are among the players who have publicly complimented Williams for her performance.
Williams injured her right knee toward the end of the first set against Joint and withdrew from her doubles match with Venus on Saturday.
An Instagram update from Serena included images of four syringes that she said “shows the fluid they drained from my knee after my singles match.” An accompanying video showed her walking with strapping up and down her right leg and what appeared to be one of her daughters holding a cane for her.
“The good news is my knee shouldn’t swell or collect that much fluid again,” Serena said. “The bad news is that, as hard as I tried, I just wasn’t able to get it ready for doubles.”
However, with the U.S. Open approaching, Serena indicated she could play again somewhere else soon.
“All I can say,” Serena said, “is stay tuned to a city near you.”
Serena became known for her emotional outbursts and run-ins with chair umpires and linesjudges toward the end of her career.
So Stubbs was concerned about her on-court behavior during her comeback.
But Williams maintained her composure from start to finish.
“That was sort of like the one sort of thing that I asked, is that she try and — as hard as it was going to be — to control her emotions and her nerves and all that sort of stuff,” Stubbs said. “I don’t think people even remotely can quantify the amount of pressure that was on her to walk out there and do what she did.”
Stubbs was disappointed, though, to see negative reactions to Williams’ return on social media. She was also criticized for skipping her post-match duties – since the injury was not announced until a day later.
Stubbs herself was also criticized on social media.
“I just don’t understand why people feel the need to tear somebody down,” Stubbs said. “What she’s doing out there is trying to play a sport she loves. That’s what it’s about. Show the kids, be out there, enjoy it and give the people another look at playing. … What is wrong on with a seven-time Wimbledon champion — a 23-time Grand Slam champion — wanting to play another time at Wimbledon? God let her.”
While Williams played two doubles matches before Wimbledon, she hadn’t played singles since the 2022 U.S. Open.
“Ideally would we have loved to have had warm-up matches? Yes,” Stubbs said. “And for anyone to insinuate that she didn’t want to do that is crazy.”
The problem was that Williams wanted to get the feeling of being back on the court first in two doubles tournaments. But after winning in the first round at Queen’s Club with partner Victoria Mboko, the pair had to withdraw when Mboko was injured playing singles.
Then Williams and partner Karolina Muchova lost in the first round at the Berlin Open.
“I would venture to say that if she’d had four or five more doubles matches, she would have even been better because she would’ve had that experience of feeling the big points and hitting the big returns on break point and hitting the serves big,” Stubbs said.
Because the match started late in the day and there were concerns about darkness, the roof over Centre Court was closed for the match.
“She was hitting the ball so well in practice and moving really well and the conditions were very different indoors,” Stubbs said. “They were heavy. Her ball wasn’t shooting through the court like it was outside.”
Despite being away for so long, Williams still hit serves beyond 120 mph and showed off her heavy groundstrokes that landed within inches of the baseline.
The only real issue was her movement.
“When you’re great, you’re great,” Stubbs said. “When you have great timing, you always have great timing. I saw that from the moment I stepped back on court with her. I was like, ‘Well, you never lost that.’
"And then it’s just getting the movement going and getting the body going and all that sort of stuff again and at a certain age you also have to monitor the workload. So what I saw out there didn’t surprise me at all, because I had been seeing it for months: The capacity to hit the ball as well as she’s always hit the ball.”
Stubbs, an Australian who won six Grand Slam titles in women’s doubles and mixed doubles, also coached Williams in her previous farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open.
Now based in New York, Stubbs first went down to Florida to start coaching Williams again in March.
“She was already hitting before that, but that’s when she was like, ‘OK, I need the eyeballs I trust on me,’” Stubbs said.
Serena also brought back her longtime hitting partner, Jarmere Jenkins, who co-coaches her with Stubbs.
“I’ve known Serena since she was a kid,” Stubbs said. “Jarmere knows her very, very well. Derick (Pierson), her fitness guy, is one of her best friends.”
While Williams indicated in her injury post that she would play again, her team is still awaiting details.
“She’s not just going to do a one-off,” Stubbs said. “I think she would like to play more but that is 100% her decision. ... I’m sure she’ll re-evaluate and reassess how she wants go forward and then we’ll be there for her either way.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
