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เป็นบทสัมภาษณ์ของน้องเซที่ได้ให้กับสัมภาษณ์กับหนังสือ The Times นะครับ
เนื้อหาค่อนข้างยาว เพราะฉะนั้นขออนุญาตไม่แปลนะครับ เพราะแปลแล้วคงจะผิดแน่นอน 555 ขอแบ่งเป็นสองส่วนนะครับ
Serenas different strokes
The highest earner in womens tennis this year has plenty of other projects to occupy her
Barry Flatman
The world of constantly changing hats that Serena Williams inhabits, in which she is forever switching between the demands of top-flight tennis, fashion design, acting, philanthropic deeds and now writing an inspirational memoir that will double as her life history, can mean that a mission statement laid down several months earlier becomes a curious thing to revisit.
Many is the time Serena has stated her intentions of achieving something one week and then apparently done completely the opposite. Yet she listened with interest as her words of early January this year were read back to her. My aim is to take care of A and make sure that A is happy. If that is the case then trust me; the tournament titles will come flowing in like all the water crashing over Niagara Falls.
On hearing that statement, a giggle that gathered momentum into a full-blown laugh ensued; they often do when Serena tries to be serious. Then, regaining her composure, she reflected for a second or two before congratulating herself on her metaphorical choice. Did I say that? she asked. Yeah, I like those words. They pretty much fit the way I felt then and the way I still feel now. It seems to be working.
If four singles titles and another couple of doubles constitute a torrent, then Serena has been as good as her word. And remember that the haul includes her first US Open triumph in six years, which took her total of Grand Slam singles titles to nine. In addition, she teamed up with big sister Venus to capture a second Wimbledon doubles crown and an Olympic gold medal.
After a career that stretches back 10 years, few now expect Serena to be one of the workaholics of womens tennis. Yet she tops the 2008 money list by nearly a million dollars, reclaimed the world No 1 ranking (albeit briefly) that she held five years previously and suffered fewer defeats than any leading player, male or female. She has also comfortably qualified for the Sony Eric-sson WTA Tour Championships, to be staged in Qatar, while playing a fraction of the matches of those ranked above her.
Not a bad year then, Ill take that, but its not over yet, she insisted, having just returned from a New York bookstore, where she had stocked up on reading matter to amuse herself during the nine-hour flight to Doha. The Middle East is where she will attempt to enhance her fortune at the $4.55m event that ends the womens tennis calendar and which she last won in 2001. In some respects I am going into the unknown because I dont even know where Qatar is on the map. Somebody told me its Kuwait. However, I am fit and ready and enthusiastic and fully aware of what awaits me out there on the tennis court. Right now I am just so eager to compete. The will to play is just so strong at the moment and that excites me.
Such news might come as something of a surprise to the tournament director of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, to whom Serena sent her apologies a month ago, stating that she was suffering from an injured ankle. Widely published photographs of her surfing in Hawaii barely a week later alongside her boyfriend and rapper, Common, can only have deepened Sergey Leonyuks dismay.
Serena has played just the one match since winning the US Open almost two months ago and that was a disappointing display against Chinas Na Li in Stuttgart, where she let a 6-0 domination in the opening set crumble into a lame defeat. And there is a reason for the WTA Tour hierarchy to be more than a little anxious until they actually see Serena walking on to the court at the revamped Khalifa International stadium. Three times previously she has qualified for this event and then sent her apologies; a back injury and a damaged left foot forced her out of a November date at Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1999 and 2000, while her troublesome left knee provoked the nonappearance at the 2003 event, at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.
Then, last year in Madrid, she had to retire after just a set of her opening match against Anna Chakvetadze because of more knee problems, not that she has time for any regrets over that withdrawal. I dont recall that as a painful experience, she said. Id never been to Madrid before so I stayed around in the city for a while and had so much fun. I wouldnt have changed it for anything but dont worry, Im healthy this time. In fact, except for a few little problems here and there, I believe I have been pretty much match-fit and focused on my tennis since the beginning of last year when I won the Australian Open. I have been putting in the hard work ever since but it has only been in the last six months that I have seen the results. The hunger and desire to do well has always been there but it is just manifesting itself now.
This year I really thought I was going to win the French Open again but it didnt work out that way. Then I should have won the Wimbledon final against Venus. I came apart mentally. I lost my cool. People say it was a good final between the two of us but I dont remember it in that way. What sticks in my mind was the wind blowing around Centre Court, which made things so difficult. Then, when we went out together to play the doubles final a couple of hours later, there was not a breath of breeze, which made me even more angry.
Curiously, she maintains that the Olympic gold medal for the doubles in Beijing prompted more delight than the US Open success, during which she celebrated a succession of victories over Doha rivals Venus, Dinara Safina and the current world No 1, Jelena Jankovic, by dancing a jig of delight on the court.
Yes, I felt good [at Flushing Meadows] but the Olympics were the best thing that happened to me this year, she said. Im the kind of person who believes I will win US Open titles and, growing up, I always aspired to win Grand Slam titles but it was never my goal to win a gold medal. They are supposed to be for people like Michael Phelps, who is somebody I think about in the way a fan does. He did such an amazing job and I would love to meet all the swimmers. They just have the best bodies.
That choice may be something to do with the fact that she has just begun work on her own life story. Bidding reputedly reached $1.3m for the rights to what Serena is already calling her inspirational memoirs. It is due in the bookstores for the preChristmas sales boom next year. She is working in collaboration with Daniel Paisner, who co-wrote the 9/11 recollection Last Man Down with the New York fire department battalion commander Richard Picci-otto. The working title is the far from imaginative Queen Of The Court but she was quick to point out: It would be wrong to call it my autobiography because I am far too young for that and there are so many more things to happen in my life.
Plus, its not about the way I play and there are so many more things Im going to do both on the court and off it. I prefer to think of it as my own Who Moved My Cheese? and I want it to motivate other people when they read about the struggles and the difficulties I have been through with all the negativity that was levelled at me. It would be good if I could help people who have a lot of challenges and show them how they might overcome those barriers.
No less an observer than Billie Jean King remains insistent that Serena could definitely have become the greatest woman to have played tennis if she had been totally focused on the task in hand.
Her upbringing decreed that there would always be other aims and interests in the Williams sisters lives. For Serena the most discernible is a desire to make a meaningful contribution to her roots and, immediately once play is over in Doha, she will fly first to South Africa and then Kenya to make gifts of numerous computers to underprivileged schools.
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ก้อง (Kong357)  
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2 พ.ย. 51 11:59:23
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