Reach for the sky - you might land on a star'
No sooner had Serena Williams won her first Wimbledon title than she was thinking about next month's US Open and then next year's Australian Open, the one grand slam title she has yet to win. "When you reach for the sky, you might land on a star," was how she expressed this vaulting ambition.
Richard Williams, her father, has always asserted that Serena would become the better player of the sisters, and a pattern has now been set with Venus having lost the last three matches against her younger sister, two in grand slam finals.
Serena attributes her dominant form this year to winning the State Farm Classic in Scottsdale, Arizona, beating the Swiss Martina Hingis in the semi-finals and her fellow American Jennifer Capriati in the final. "That was a big up for my confidence. I expect to win now. Before that, I didn't."
The year had not begun well when she twisted an ankle in Sydney, thereby ruling her out of the Australian Open. She now travels with her own personal trainer all the time, but admitted that her problems were more mental than physical. "I've grown up a little bit this year," she said.
Her playing record over the past 12 months is remarkable. The 20-year-old has lost just four matches, not including the semi-final in Sydney when she injured her ankle, reaching nine finals and winning seven, while Saturday's win over Venus stretched her winning run to 19 matches. Small wonder she has now achieved the No1 ranking, taking it from her sister, and thereby becoming the 11th player to hold the position since the women's rankings began in the mid-1970s.
"I've planned for this moment," said Serena, quoting her father's adage that "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail". Winning the French and Wimbledon titles back-to-back, the first women to achieve this since Germany's Steffi Graf in 1996, has clearly fired her ambition. "I'm always aiming to make history," she said, making it perfectly clear that she intends to wrest the US Open title from Venus.
There was no doubting Venus's disappointment. At Roland Garros she had borrowed a camera immediately after losing to Serena, and greatly amused herself and her sister as she stood with the press photographers snapping away merrily. On Saturday the smiles were few.
It may have been that her injured right shoulder was causing her more pain than she admitted. "She's a little stubborn like that," said Serena, who acknowledged that over the years Venus has always gone out of her way to make her happy, generally acting "like a parent".
On several occasions Richard Williams has urged Venus to give up tennis and do something different. Such utterances have usually been explained away by his eccentricity. However it may be, should Serena become totally dominant, that Venus will indeed call it a day. "Normally when you have fun, things come to you," beamed Serena. There were precious few signs of Venus having fun before, during or after this final.