One year on from her career low point against Naomi Osaka the former champion takes on yet another prodigyNot since Muhammad Ali roamed
boxing in the 60s and 70s has there been an individual sporting psychodrama to equal that generated by Serena Williams.
Three weeks short of her 38th birthday (which she does not celebrate because of her Jehovah’s Witness faith), Williams is hurled into another anniversary she cannot avoid when she revisits the scene of probably her most anguished experience. It is a year since the great
American left Arthur Ashe Stadium in tears, a broken champion who could do little but surrender to her own frailties and the rock-solid tennis of Naomi Osaka, a teenager who would rise further then fall in the almost inevitable narrative of their sport.