Serena Williams

I'm planning a post on Serena Williams in her own words, but the material for it is still an amorphous blob. So, here is my take on her game.

Her great talent is doubtless, but I think her performance on any given rests on how high she has herself pumped up psychologically. She says she doesn't think out there, that she isn't a thinker who plans strategy and tactics.

It looks like that's true. If everything she whales on goes in, her opponent is dismayed, and that steamroller keeps rollin' on to victory.

But a lot of those shots are low-percentage shots. So, when she's hot, they go in and she wins. The other side of that coin goes without saying.

It's a psyche job. Too many players think there's some magic involved, something special about them that makes them inherently superior to mere mortals, something that makes them able to whale on low-percentage shots with abandon and make them go in.

But it isn't. That's why this "magic" comes and goes.

She should start thinking a little strategy and tactics. Just as the men discovered that Lleyton Hewitt has feet of clay, the women will rediscover that Serena Williams does too. Then she'll have to take another year or two off to come back as something "new" again.