Andy Roddick is right – Serena Williams is “obsessed with history, obsessed”.
There is no other reason why she was talking about the US Open only a few minutes after becoming the oldest woman to win a major at 33 years and 289 days at Wimbledon.
Having completed her Serena Slam II, Williams has now set her sights on a bigger prize – the calendar Grand Slam – and if history is any indication, she should be able to achieve her dreams.
In the Open era, only two women have ever arrived for the US Open having won the won the first three majors of the year – the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon – and both those ladies have gone on to complete the Grand Slam: Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.
Williams, then, will know history is on her side when she arrives in New York as a three-time defending champion for the final major tournament.
Her own performance at Flushing Meadows will only boost her confidence – she is 27-1 at the US Open over the past five years having reached the 2011 final.
Wimbledon was perhaps her biggest test given her struggles on her past two visits to the All England Club – she could go no further than third round last year and lost in the fourth in 2013.
So winning The Championships must be a huge relief, but as former star Tracy Austin warned, “the amount of pressure on Serena in New York has just increased 100-fold”.
Can Williams cope?
“If I can do the Serena Slam, I think I’ll be OK,” she said.
And when Williams says, she does.
arizvi@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE