Free On the Line by Serena Williams Page B

fuss about losing, but I didn’t
     think there was any room in the moment for me to be upset. It was Venus’s tournament, after all. I didn’t really belong there.
     I should have been happy for V that she’d won. She deserved to win. She was meant to win. But I was surely disappointed—and
     I couldn’t let on! Here I’d had this great tournament. I’d made it all the way to the finals. I was the youngest girl there.
     I got a lot of attention. But when you’re eight, you don’t have it in you to appreciate the big picture, so I remember feeling
     this huge letdown.
    At the awards ceremony right after, they gave Venus a nice gold trophy. They gave me a nice silver trophy as the runner-up.
     It was my first real trophy, so you’d think I’d be excited about it, but I just kept looking at Venus’s gold trophy and wishing
     I could have somehow beaten her. Oh my God, I wanted that gold trophy so badly.
    Venus could see I was upset. After all, she was my big sister. She was used to taking care of me. She knew just what to do
     to pick me up. She came up to me after the awards ceremony and said, “You know what, Serena? I’ve been thinking. I’ve always
     liked silver better than gold. You want to trade?”
    It was the sweetest, most selfless gesture. She set it out like I’d be doing her a favor by trading trophies. Took me completely
     by surprise, but we traded trophies right there. She was my big sister so I did what she said, and to this day that’s the
     most meaningful trophy I’ve ever received. I didn’t earn it, but I cherish it. It’s the only one I keep close—at my bedside,
     actually. Every night when I’m home, I go to bed and look at Venus’s gold first-place trophy from my first-ever tournament
     and count my blessings. That I have the world’s best big sister. That at eight years old I was able to beat all these girls
     a year or two older. That Daddy never did make me pay him back for that entry fee. That I wouldn’t have to play in those silly
     recreational leagues anymore, now that I had shown everyone I was ready to play in real tournaments. That my whole family
     was so incredibly supportive of me during that first tournament, just as they have been at every tournament since. And that
     no matter how many times Venus and I face each other on a tennis court, we’ll always be sisters.
    We’ll battle each other like nobody’s business, but the competition will never separate us.
    T he buzz around Venus’s game only got louder as we developed, because she never lost a match as a junior player. Me, I didn’t
     lose many, but I did lose a few. And yet despite that small gap between us in terms of our records, the space between us in
     terms of our reputations was just huge. Venus was still the rising star, and I was still the kid sister. I started to think
     maybe that newspaper reporter was right, because our situation wasn’t about to change. Venus was still way taller than me,
     but a lot of times people couldn’t tell us apart. They’d call me Venus; they’d call her Serena. But once they saw us play,
     that made it easier. They could tell the fierce swan from the ugly duckling, no problem.
    After that first tournament, Daddy did what he could to make sure we didn’t compete against each other in a meaningful match.
     He put Venus in the 12-and-unders and me in the 10-and-unders. And that was how it was until we both turned professional.
     Venus went pro first, and I followed soon after, kind of like it first happened for us on the circuit in California. After
     that, we couldn’t really control when we’d face each other. We could only hope it wasn’t too early in the tournament, so we’d
     each have a chance to get on a roll and reach into the later rounds. Ideally, we’d stay out of each other’s way until the
     end.
    The very first time we competed as professionals was in the second round of the 1998 Australian Open. I’m skipping ahead here,
     but I want to