US Open: Why is it so difficult to win a second grand slam?
Answers to some of the questions that have bedeviled tennis players like Serena Williams and Venus Williams.
Serena Williams has one of the most unusual careers in tennis history. From a child prodigy competing against the world’s top children in a tour, to winning her first grand slam in 2011, to serving a doping suspension in 2012, to winning her second in 2013 — with two matches all but lost to the same opponent — then serving a drug suspension in the 2014 US Open, Williams has managed to avoid the fate of many other top athletes who fall prey to drugs and corruption. What’s less talked about over the years is why Serena has been able to stay on top this long — and what the key factors are that have made her so resilient as a player.
The US Open has a long history of being a unique fixture for the most competitive tennis player in the world. It has never been the same again after a player either drops out or gets disqualified. It is the only grand slam tournament with a rule that forbids it from starting the third day. If it was open to all players, it would have to close at 6pm on the final day due to space issues. That is what is so unique about the US Open and why it attracts the most competitive players in the world.
Here are the key factors that have allowed Williams to stay on top and be the world’s best player:
1. She does everything she can to make her competition play as hard as she does; and it works.
Williams does everything she can to make it harder for her opponent to execute and execute well. In the first set of her match against Ana Ivanovic, she took the first break of the match on her serve, and as soon as her opponent’s serve got served, she would take a different route than her opponent. If she gets a break, she is not looking to serve out of the stretch and try to put Ivanovic on the defensive. She is always looking to take the ball back, to force points away from her opponent.
“I try to put pressure on the ball by putting it on serve and by making it as hard for them to score as possible,” she told CNN. “I’m telling myself that I should just