During the Desert Smash charity event in Indian Wells that combines Hollywood actors, performers, singers and tennis stars for an entertaining evening, there was a casual on-court interview of Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka. Both were about to return to official competition after many months.
Azarenka became a mother in December 2016, and had a hiccups-filled return that is still ongoing. After the birth of her child Leo, Azarenka was locked in a custody battle with Leo’s father, Billy McKeague. She had wild cards at multiple events but pulled out of them at the last minute. With the Indian Wells and Miami premier mandatory events on US soil, Azarenka, who had been fighting the legal battle in California, was determined to make a splash on the courts, the dimensions of which she knows better than any other.
By now it is the stuff of legends that Serena won the Australian Open 2017 while eight weeks pregnant. But only later did we learn that nothing else transpired as smoothly. Soon after giving birth in September 2017, Serena suffered another bout of pulmonary embolism (her earlier one was in 2011) followed by haematoma, the fear of blood clots always at the back of her mind, according to what she told Vogue this year.
The two champions and off-court friends had gone through enough and couldn’t wait to get back to competition. The fact that Azarenka and Serena were going to play their first competitive match in many months on March 8, Women’s Day, neither escaped the ‘hot take’ dispenser (otherwise known as tennis Twitter) nor those employed to string hundreds of words in archiving an important event in Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tennis.
In that Desert Smash interview, in between light moments of pairing up Leo and Alexis Olympia, the two spoke about how they’ve exchanged notes in the past one year on everything pregnancy and babies. Not long before, they exchanged some of the most interesting notes as rivals on court. Serena leads the head to head 17-4 and this is the case in every Serena vs rest-of-the-field story. The numbers, as they occasionally do in sports and narratives, lie. The Serena-Azarenka rivalry is a sight to behold, consisting of hard-fought high-quality matches, an attraction that had been pushed to realms of exotica during their absence. Six of the last nine matches between them have gone three sets. All of Azarenka’s four victories have come in tournament finals.
Azarenka is a challenger like few others in the Serena era. The last time the younger Williams had a rival to speak of was probably when Justine Henin was a Grand Slam contender. But Azarenka’s game face and on court demeanour always projected an aura, an aura that in her early days many people failed to grasp. When they were unable to grasp that they focused on her grunt, failing to notice that Azarenka had that rare consistently commanding presence on court, no matter who was on the other side. Through it all, Azarenka won two Australian Opens back to back, in 2012 and 2013. In those years, she also reached the US Open finals where she faced Serena.
The US Open 2012 final tells the story of their rivalry. In a typical delayed, quick, packed conditions at Arthur Ashe stadium, balls were bludgeoned, and fortunes turned. For the first time since 1995, a women’s singles final went the distance as Azarenka, after losing the first set, not only won the second but was two points away at 5-3 in the third. If you check the YouTube highlights, the commentators begin to sound delirious from the beginning of the second set and don’t stop till Serena falls flat on her back after the last point. Things escalate from “Serena is dominating here at the women’s US Open final” to “What a match!” and “That’s the point of the match” multiple times over the course of those 138 minutes. This is the attraction that these two not-so-gentle women bring to the top of women’s tennis, and by making their returns at Indian Wells and Miami, they offer an important contrast to an already burgeoning layer cake that is the WTA.
The good news is that they are far from safe. Their comebacks at the Premier Mandatory events of Indian Wells and Miami was a bit of old and the new, both when they were winning and in the losses they incurred. Serena gave glimpses of her serve that launched 23 Grand Slam titles and won two matches before losing to her sister Venus Williams, whose resurgence over the last two years is a long-form story by itself. What was visibly missing was the footwork, but the shots from the serve to the backhand were all there and only improved with every match. Zarina Diyas and Kiki Bertens pushed her to 7-5 sets and tie-breaks, but couldn’t break the Serena will and aura.
Azarenka had a modest start at Indian Wells, with a win over Heather Watson and a loss to Slone Stephens, the US Open champion, in whom Azarenka may have seen a little of her younger self. At Indian Wells, during a press conference, Serena said, “I felt like my story wasn’t over, coming back wasn’t even a question for me.” Azarenka’s words put her struggles in perspective, “With all I’ve been through, I’m surprised I have my shit together at all.”
The player who shone at Indian Wells with her serve and aggressive tennis was, however, 20-year-old Naomi Osaka, belting winners from both the wings and cruising through the draw for her first title, a Premier Mandatory, one of the most audacious WTA runs in recent memory. The prize ceremony speech was a portentous all-time-great contender where after winning the title, she felt compelled to first introduce herself to the world. “Hi, I am Naomi,” she began. Osaka flew to Miami with her trophy and with her draw announcing Serena as her opening match opponent – which ended in a straight sets defeat, to Williams.
Daria Kasatkina, the finalist at Indian Wells, has a game built on controlled aggression that combines beauty and power, a combination that helped defeat Venus in a scintillating semi-final encounter. It allows Kasatkina to deliver while showing off and a particular jumping backhand is an indicator of things to come. Azarenka’s comeback transformed into a dream with her driving past players of different styles, calibers and age. In the fourth round, slyer, old foe in Radwanska was dispatched in regulation fashion. In the quarter-finals, a clean hitting Karolina Pliskova, ranked five now, was hardly a threat. Wins against Top-20 and Top-10 in Miami later, Azarenka’s glorious, underwritten comeback story was stopped by Sloane Stephens, second time in three weeks.
Azarenka’s fearlessness on court gets reflected on Sloane Stephens and Jelena Ostapenko, the US Open and French Open champions respectively, who faced each other in the Miami finals. In the battle between the attacker and the defender, the dogged pursuit of the ball by Stephens won. The WTA right now from top to middle is an embarrassment of riches, a problem of plenty, however, you look at it. The return of the Azarenka-Serena duopoly is a necessary boost while the rest of the WTA is still cashing out and in no mood to pull the chain. The child-rearing notes exchanging seniors redraw another climb to the summit, while the class of 1990s demonstrates its Instagram-friendly friendships and simultaneously wins big titles. The old order isn’t dead. Long live the new order.
Aditya Shrikrishna is a freelance film critic from Chennai, India, with a newfound love for tennis writing.