At first, Serena didn't need to visit the well.
Serena's first-round match, against Vitalia Diatchenko, was all but a walkover. She played so-so against Kiki Bertens in the second but advanced without much trouble. So far, so good.
Starting with her third-round match against Bethanie Mattek-Sands, however, the pressure on Serena quickly began to ramp up. No one who played her from then on appeared to have gotten the memo that this was supposed to be Serena's Moment of Transcendent Glory.
80th-ranked Bethanie Mattek-Sands came out serving and volleying. Read that again. Against the best returner of all time, she came out serving and volleying. She won the first set and it was no fluke. For a while in the second it looked like she might actually win in straights, but then Serena dug deep, hit that higher gear and broke late to win the set. The fight seemed to go out of Mattek-Sands then, and Serena put the match away at love in the third.
In the fourth round, Serena beat Madison Keys in straight sets, 6-3 6-3, but Keys was no pushover. ESPN showed an astonishing graphic during the match: Keys hits her groundstrokes about 15% harder than Serena, about 74 mph to Serena's 65. How is that even possible?
Next up was Venus, a match I predicted would be no match at all. I figured there was simply no way that Venus wanted to be the one to end her little sister's fairy tale. Thankfully, I was wrong. Venus may not have been 100% devoted to winning, as Mattek-Sands and Keys were, but she comported herself like a professional and played a solid match. Serena won the first set easily, 6-2, but let down--again--in the second, allowing Venus to snatch an easy second set, 6-1. In the third, Serena pumped herself into Superhero Gear and pulled away.
And then came the match against Roberta Vinci. I had watched a bit of Vinci's quarterfinal match against Kristina Mladenovic and was shocked that she won. The Serena-Vinci semifinal followed Flavia Pennetta's win against Simona Halep, the only woman remaining who I thought had a chance against Serena, and I said to myself, "Well, from here it's a coronation." And through the first set, 6-2 to Serena, it looked like it. I was watching on a slight delay on the DVR, and after Serena cruised through the first I figured, "This is over." I started to fast-forward, then stopped a few games into the second set to see what had transpired. The score was 3-2 Vinci, with Vinci serving. She'd managed to break Serena. They stayed on serve through the rest of the set and Vinci held 6-4.
"Okay, fine, Serena's typical one-set letdown," I said.
And everything appeared to be following the script at the beginning of the third. Serena held serve easily, then broke Vinci to take a 2-0 lead. ("Here we go," I said.) But the game at 2-0 didn't go as planned. Serena alternated easy points and aces with errors and poor movement to find herself at deuce, pulled a shot wide to give ad out, and then, shockingly, double-faulted to give back the break. Three reasonably straightforward games followed, and it was 3-3 on serve.
And then in the set's seventh game, Vinci broke serve and broke Serena as well. A missed return by Vinci gave Serena the first point, but then back-to-back double-faults put her down 15-30. On the next two points, Vinci missed a drop volley wide, then hit long on a possible passing shot: 40-30, game point Serena. A terrible backhand volley by Serena brought the game's first deuce, but she followed it with an ace to give her her second game point. And then came the point of the match.
It was a study in differing energies, one player well in flow, the other crumbling. Serena missed her first serve, but hit her second reasonably well and deep to Vinci's backhand. Vinci calmly sliced the return to Serena's feet. Serena hit a topspin backhand down the line to Vinci's forehand, which Vinci returned down the line back to Serena's backhand.
At this point you could really see just how far off her game Serena really was. Serena's reply should have been straightforward, but she didn't really set her feet, hitting a weak open-stanced backhand that landed at the T of the service line. Vinci again played a slice backhand to Serena's backhand. Serena again returned down the line. Vinci again played a straightforward forehand down the line. Again Serena's footwork was poor, and she hit an off-balance backhand wildly cross-court. Vinci duly sliced her backhand to Serena's backhand, and Serena dutifully played the backhand down the line. Vinci, perhaps sensing the fragility of her opponent's mental state with respect to her movement, hit her forehand forcefully cross-court. Serena ran it down and returned the ensuing cross-court forehand angled sharply into the forehand service box, pulling Vinci up toward the net and well wide.
The quality of Serena's forehand didn't leave Vinci with a ton of options. She hit a forehand deep to the backhand side, about midway between the center mark and the sideline. Had Serena been within shouting distance of her best, she would have prepared her racquet early as she moved back into the court from her previous shot and then hit a backhand winner deep into the essentially empty court. Here, she was desperately off her game and only managed to block the ball back to the T. Vinci comfortably ran it down and hit one more slice backhand to Serena's forehand to keep her moving side-to-side. Serena responded with a desperate forehand cross-court, high enough that Vinci, now up at net, backhand drop-volleyed into the backhand service box. Serena, moving now like Bowser in the game Mario Tennis (fierce, powerful, but slow), did her best to charge it down but couldn't get there.
Here was the look on Serena's face as she tried:
That brought the score to deuce once again, but Vinci knew that it was a big point: she threw her hands up and exhorted the (wildly pro-Serena) crowd. On the next two service points, Vinci returned comfortably. Serena responded with two errors, one into the net and one long, and Vinci completed the break to go up 4-3.
The shot-making from here to the end of the match was a study in contrasts. On an overhead at 15-30 in Vinci's next service game, Serena's scream, normally an incitement to herself, seemed directed directly at Vinci, like an animal lashing out at her tormentor. Twice, Serena responded to Vinci lobs with overhead (non-) smashes that Vinci was able to lob a second time. In both cases, Serena put the second overhead away, but still. This was not the Serena we've grown accustomed to seeing. She got up 15-40 but the game ended like this: error, error, error, double fault (a gift from Vinci), error, error, and it was 5-3.
And Vinci? After a straightforward hold from Serena to make it 5-4, Vinci's touch got better still. In the final game she hit a lovely, calm drop volley to go up 30-0, and, moments later, an even lovelier, calmer drop half-volley on triple match point for the winner and the match.
And just like that, it was over. Serena stumbled away, stunned. Vinci, ecstatic, declared it the greatest moment of her life. And for many of us watching--well, what was there for us to do but speak to the privilege of having witnessed something extraordinary?