Sublime Serena celebrates the crucial difference
One is a fireball, the other a constellation. Just because they come from the same gene pool and shared an upbringing in life and tennis, and because they both use power and speed to vanquish their opponents, Venus and Serena Williams are often referred to as if they were one person, more or less. Saturday's Wimbledon final showed such a view to be absurd and insulting.
Serena, the younger, won the women's singles title by 7-6, 6-3 mostly because she needed it more and because her sister could not serve at full power. At 20, Serena now has three grand slam victories to put against Venus's four. She had not won at Wimbledon and, as she put it afterwards, she wanted "to become a member of so much prestige, so much history".
Long, long ago their father predicted that Serena would turn out to be the better player of the two. But after winning the US Open in 1999 and becoming the first of them to win a major, she fell back. "For a while she wasn't doing her best," Venus said on Saturday evening. "Now I think she has to feel better that she has taken full advantage of her career."
To keep her mind on the job, Serena spent the change-over time reading notes she had prepared for herself. "Hit in front of you," one instructed. "Stay low," another said. While her play was not devoid of unforced errors, she won because she distilled more of her talent into her performance on the day.
"I can't become satisfied," she said, reflecting on her triumph, "because if I get satisfied I'll be, like, 'Oh, I've won Wimbledon, I've won the US Open, now I can relax.' But people are really going to be fighting to beat me now."
At the moment, Serena's existence outside her family is defined by tennis and on Saturday she was unsparing in her self-criticism. One set and 2-1 up, she won the first two points of the next game against Venus's serve but then left a chink of light that let her sister back in.
"I got a little lackadaisical, a little too satisfied, and I hit a couple of ridiculous shots," she said. "Then I said to myself, 'You're going to be telling your grandkids about this one day, how you didn't take your opportunity.' So that's what I decided, to go ahead and take my opportunity."
Such concentration has never been among Venus's primary characteristics. From the moment she first arrived in England, six years ago, it has been apparent that her interests extend far beyond the perimeter lines of a tennis court. In that she has inherited something of her father's visionary nature.
In those early days someone asked her what she would like to be when tennis was over. Oh, she said, an archaeologist, perhaps. Or maybe an architect. It didn't take long to form the impression that either discipline might easily fall within her intellectual compass. And she was only starting with the As.
She has a mind that ranges wide and free, even within the restricted scope of a post-match press conference. It is not hard to guess that she will be the first of the two to stop playing professional tennis, and will move on to the next phase of her life unhindered by regrets. If she has grandchildren, there will be much else besides tennis to tell them about.
"I don't play the same game Serena plays," Venus said. "For her, it's all or nothing. For me, it's not this."
But they are different in less obvious ways. Take the question of the players' chairs. Serena, a lover of order, makes sure that hers is facing into the court. On Saturday it was facing the baseline, so she turned it around. When she plays doubles with Venus, she does the same with both their chairs. Venus isn't bothered. She takes it as it comes. On Saturday she left her chair facing the baseline, so that during the change-overs the two sisters were at 90 degrees to each other.
In life, however, they are seldom to be found facing in different directions. In an era when commercial and competitive pressures tend to distort even the sunniest nature, the fact they they have grown up together and grown into tennis champions with so little visible stress and difficulty is something close to a miracle.
Apart from Serena's hunger for victory, Venus's aching shoulder defined the match. She refused to use it as an excuse afterwards, but it prevented her from producing anything like her normal speed of service. Most of her deliveries failed to break 100mph. "Unfortunately it's like war out there," Serena observed. "If there's a weakness, somebody's going to have to be attacked. So, unfortunately, it was too bad."
The sisters both smiled and accepted the crowd's applause at the end of the match, but later on Venus's distress at the loss of her championship was plain to see. "It's no fun losing, no matter who you lose to," she said. "It's not something that I'm going to get used to or try to adjust to because I'm not one for losing often. I still feel that I'm in a dominant position, but it's almost impossible to win every match. I aspire to do so, but it doesn't always happen."
A few days ago on BBC radio, Christine Truman agreed with the remark of Tony Adamson, her fellow commentator, that what the sisters present to the public is "a freak show". Some freak show that was on centre court on Saturday afternoon. The final was a real tennis match, a display of strengths and weaknesses, in which fluctuations of form and fortune gradually gave way to a coherent narrative and a justified outcome. Beginning in a grey haze and ending in radiant sunshine, it developed enough edge and tension to dispel the widespread fear that these two women are incapable of facing each other without a script.
As sister confronted sister the emotions on court were certainly on a different plane from those encountered in most finals. But they were authentic enough. Affection and compassion were present, along with the more customary desire to win and hatred of losing, and neither the winner nor the loser behaved as though her world had been suddenly turned upside down. For spectators trained to expect more extreme reactions, this takes some getting used to. Not for them, though. Sisters they were, and sisters they remain.