Serena Offers Hope

After her understandably messy win over German soon-to-be-somebody Angelique Kerber, Serena Williams went through her usual post-match routine: praising her outfit (despite having had to tear the bow off at the end of the 2nd set), disparaging her performance, and denying her opponent even one tiny crumb of credit for making her work hard. We've heard it all before. The fresh news—and a ray of hope for anybody out there flailing around on a court—came at the end, when 'Rena revealed that she was once an incompetent player. "I was terrible. I couldn't hit hard. I hit lobs and slice. I'm amazed that I've come this far. I was terrible. Only thing I could do was run fast. I had like a terrible serve. Oh, my God. I had the worst forehand. When I look back at old films my dad had, I'm like, I would have quit on her. It pays not to give up because somewhere along the line I changed." It's so encouraging to hear that Serena didn't come out of the womb firing off those slice serves down the line or cracking cross-court backhand winners.