Playing Serena Is Always a Myth Match

It was a myth.

Kim Clijsters, 19, was going to rise to the challenge. She was going to push Serena Williams, use her quickness, her relentless energy, her growing confidence and rapid maturity to offer Williams a true and worthy rival.

It was what Amelie Mauresmo wishfully believed. “Kim is playing better than Serena,” Mauresmo had said in Australia. It was what Jelena Dokic said: “Kim is playing better and better. She can push Serena.”

Or maybe not.

Since Williams, a little slow-footed, a bit tired and maybe not extremely motivated, lost to Clijsters in the final of the season-ending WTA Championships in Los Angeles last November, she has won 16 straight matches.

Williams has won the 2003 Australian Open. She can talk, seriously, about having an undefeated season. She can speak of the awe she felt when Denzel Washington told her he watched all her matches and knew what she wore in every one. She can speak of Hollywood and insist she is not dating Keyshawn Johnson.

She can talk about just about anything.

Except losing.

In the semifinals of the Nasdaq-100 Open, on a rainy Thursday when only one singles match was played, she beat Clijsters, 6-4, 6-2. Clijsters, the No. 3 player in the world, had six winners. Williams had 22. And one of Clijsters’ “winners” came when Williams took a sprawling tumble. She scraped her knees but got up smiling.

Since she won this tournament a year ago, she has a 60-4 record. Despite lots of chatter, especially from some of the European players, about how the gap is closing between her and the field, it isn’t.

Only her sister, Venus, has the kind of physical, attacking game to threaten her. But it seems as though Venus, who is ranked No. 2, has become only vaguely interested in tennis since Serena beat big sis in four straight Grand Slam finals. Venus has a design business, V Starr Interiors, and a certain resignation in her shrugs when she speaks about Serena’s ascendance.

Which left everyone looking for other challengers. And looking and looking.

“I think Kim has improved everything,” Dokic said Wednesday, after losing to Clijsters, 6-2, 6-0. “She’s raised the bar a little bit from the other players. She’s been playing very well and she’s very confident and you can see that.”

You can see that, maybe, when Clijsters isn’t playing Serena.

There are so many myths about Serena.

That she plays only one shot, one speed -- hard forehand and fast.

A myth.

In the first game of the second set Thursday, when Williams was looking to establish total dominance, she broke Clijsters’ serve with a magnificently clever angled backhand. It was risky. It was devilishly difficult. It was gutsy. But it was also a smart shot, the kind Williams doesn’t get much credit for trying. Or making.

“It’s a little spontaneous,” she said, “but I knew I was going for an angle there. I wasn’t necessarily going for that acute of an angle, but I was definitely trying to hit a sharp one.”

Another myth: Williams is cocky.

She was gracious Thursday in saying that she always feels motivated when she plays Clijsters as well as Venus and Chanda Rubin.

But she was honest in saying, “I feel if I’m playing my best tennis, it’s pretty difficult to beat me. Actually, if I’m playing my best tennis, I don’t think anyone right now can beat me. If I play my best. I haven’t played my best.”

This belief, when it comes from the greatest of athletes at the time when they have reached a level of dominance, is not ugly cockiness. It is, in a Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, a Pete Sampras or a Serena Williams, an understanding of their own talent and of the talent of their competitors.

She was asked how she would feel were she ever to face an opponent as dominant as she is now, an opponent she felt she couldn’t beat, no matter what. “It must be terrible,” she said, laughing.

“But, actually,” she said, “I can understand that feeling. I’ve had some hitting partners, no matter how well I play, they always beat me. But I keep fighting and I keep working hard and I keep getting better. And each time, it gets closer and closer.”

Those hitting partners are men. The matches she plays against them don’t count. Yet she wants to beat them.

It is hard to see any of the women on the tour summoning the combination of will and talent to beat her. Of course, an undefeated season is impossible to imagine.

Unless you are Williams. And your mind wanders. And you look around to see a sister with a fledgling business, a 19-year-old Belgian counterpuncher who is quick and hard-hitting, but not as quick or hard-hitting as you. And a bunch of others behind you who don’t seem willing to get in perfect shape (raise your hand, Jennifer Capriati); who can’t seem to stay healthy (stand up, Lindsay Davenport and Mauresmo); who aren’t physically strong enough (that’s you, Justine Henin-Hardenne and Daniela Hantuchova), or aren’t mentally tough enough (see: Dokic).

Asked if Williams is unbeatable, Clijsters paused and stammered, then said, basically, yes. “If she plays her best,” Clijsters said, “and she leaves the unforced errors out ... she serves better than Venus. She moves unbelievable, so I think if she leaves the unforced errors out, I think, yeah, for sure.”

An undefeated season might not be so out of reach after all.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.