A meeting of unequal equals: Belinda Bencic no match for Serena Williams
They call it a match, implying equal terms, but it isn't, not when it's against Serena Williams in the first round of a major. This much Switzerland's Belinda Bencic now knows.
Bencic is a decent and determined tennis player, an emerging top tenner temporarily slumming it at No.59 after a year ravaged by injury.
Williams is a corporation, a dynasty, the tide of history personified, temporarily slumming it at No.2 after a year ravaged by semi-finals. Though that tide may eddy around a snag occasionally, it's not for the turning, not yet, not in the first round. That has never happened.
Bencic is 19. By the time she was born, Williams had already been a pro for two years. That makes her 35 now, but in this tournament 35 might be the new black.
Serena Williams' hair flies en route to her first-round win against Switzerland's Belinda Bencic.Credit:AP
Bencic probably still can't believe she is doing this for a living. Williams can't believe she is still doing this for a living.
She said so in a gushy courtside interview in which she was asked how she sustains her motivation, and the effect of the answer was: "Travel the world, play tennis, get well loved and handsomely paid: what's your next best idea?"
Bencic has a win over Williams to her name, in last year's Canadian Open. She can't forget it. Williams can't remember it – she said so.
But be damned if she was going to let Bencic have two. Nobody beats Williams twice in a row.
Bencic has two titles. Williams has, oh, who knows how many? Ask Craig Willis, if you must. She has fame, and reputation, and muscle, and her vast record. She has more than most people of everything, and oh so much hair as well, and you're playing against it all.
She has presence, and is happy to flaunt it. At the toss on Tuesday, while everyone else stood ceremoniously still, she flailed away with her racquet like a windmill. It was a forewarning.
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Bencic's Twitter account "blew up" when she was drawn against Williams. Williams' didn't budge. Bencic has a Reddit account. Williams has Reddit. There he was, Alexis Ohanian, the site's founder and her fiance, just visible amid all the hair in the Williams box this day. Williams says she hasn't really stopped to think about what this means, and won't until after the tournament. "I guess it feels good," she said, with a look that forbade further inquiry. That look is also world class.
Bencic had fans. Williams had the crowd, and always does. Australia's love of the underdog is overtrumped by its infatuation with greatness.
When Williams led 6-4, 5-0, still some in the crowd were moved to cry out: "Go, Serena."
If nothing else, this proves there is an answer to the question about what you give to someone who has everything: more.
In terms of tennis, this sort of meeting of unequal equals tends to following a predictable course.
The lesser player will have one or two periods of defiance of the status quo – for Bencic, it was a break back early in the first set and another as Williams served for the match – but all the while it is moving towards an inevitable conclusion.
Shot by shot, point by point, Bencic could engage Williams for long stretches. But anything off-pace – a wobbly second serve, for instance – Williams still murders.
And every now and then, she produces a shot that arrives like the spacecraft that scoops up the eponymous hero of The Life of Brian mid-air as he tumbles towards apparently certain death from an ancient parapet; it comes from nowhere. Only the great ones can do this.
One such was a sliced backhand cross-court winner acclaimed by a post-match courtside interviewer as the shot of the millenium, approximately.
Williams admitted that it contained "a bit of luck", but added that she deserved a bit after all these years. We were wondering where it had all gone wrong.
Williams pummels you, and sometimes shocks you, but almost never bothers with tickling and teasing you: Ohanian, take note. Suspecting that your best might not be good enough, you reach beyond it, make more mistakes, fall further behind, reach even more desperately. At some point, you intuit that winning or losing is all up to her anyway. When Bencic mounted a mini-fightback near the end, and Williams quelled it, she gave it her first decent "c'mon" of the match. It was not exhortation, but indignation, with herself.
In the fleeting moment in post-match formalities before conversation turned to matters other than tennis, Williams said: "It was one of the toughest first-round matches I've ever played."
If only she could have seen it from Bencic's end.