Sisters superior

Venus and Serena -- alone and together atop their sport

I've been very amused lately whenever some new accomplishment of the Williams sisters -- Venus and Serena -- is mentioned in this fashion: The first sisters ever to play in the finals of a major tournament . . . The first sisters ever to rank 1-2 in the world . . . as if all sorts of other sisters through the years have made the semifinals or been ranked third and fourth. Let's put this in perspective: What Venus and Serena have achieved -- two sisters being the very best in the world at one thing -- is not only unique to tennis, not only unique to all major sports, but also, as far as I know, unique to all human endeavor. The only brothers I can think of who stood 1-2 in their field were Wilbur and Orville Wright , and they invented their field.

Well, in tennis, there were the Doherty brothers -- Reggie and Laurie -- who dominated Wimbledon a century ago, but they were sequential champions, and, anyway, tennis wasn't much bigger than a steak and kidney pie then. Dizzy and Daffy Dean won all four games for the Cardinals in the 1934 World Series, but they weren't the best overall. With Venus and Serena, though, it's as if Mozart and Beethoven were brothers.

And, let's get it straight: The Williamses simply are, suddenly, tennis today. They're it. The whole sport. Women's tennis used to be this wonderful championship smorgasbord, but Lindsay Davenport is injured; Martina Hingis is recovering from an operation, happily trailing her boyfriend, Sergio Garcia , about the links; Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Monica Seles have grown long in the tooth, and Jennifer Capriati , last year's sweetheart, has morphed into an ungracious churl. All who's left to contend with Venus and Serena are two Belgians and a collection of Eastern Europeans whose names all end in -ova . . . except, unfortunately, none of them is Anna Kournik-ova .

As for the men playing tennis nowadays, it's like prime-time television. There's plenty there, but there's never anything on. The best men all beat each other -- eight different champions in the last eight Grand Slams -- parity gone to the dogs. Andre Agassi provides occasional pizzazz, but Pete Sampras' gallant run at the U.S. Open last September was, apparently, his trooping of the colors. Sampras has lost a step, and no stroke correction can make up for that.

No, it's just Venus and Serena now -- better, stronger, and even more becoming. Speaking some French in their joint victory-and-defeat speeches after Serena beat Venus in the Roland Garros final earlier this month was just so attractive -- especially at a time when Europeans find Americans so self-centered and superpowerishly insensitive to others. So the Williams women not only won the French, they also won over the French, and if there's a sure bet in sports today, it is that they will get through to the Wimbledon final, rat-a-tat-tatting their power game on the grass.

Unfortunately, that's the problem. Venus and Serena have no passion for playing one another. And tennis, like boxing, thrives on contrast. Somebody once said that a tie is like kissing your sister. Well, now we know that playing your sister is also like kissing your sister. But then, Venus and Serena can't be blamed if they're simply too good, and the finals now are just a sweet embrace of sisterhood.

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. His new novel, The Other Adonis (Sourcebooks Landmark), is available now at bookstores everywhere.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer

 

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