Inside the Studio With ‘In the Arena: Serena Williams”
A look at our new series on ESPN+
We’re in the middle of maybe the most exciting week-long stretch in the history of Religion of Sports. On Wednesday, the first episode of our 8-part series In the Arena: Serena Williams premiered on ESPN+. Next Tuesday, right after the MLB All-Star Game, our film Welcome to the J-Rod Show will debut on FS1. And then, on Wednesday, July 17, the first part of our new Netflix series Simone Biles Rising, which will follow the gymnast through the Paris Olympics, will start streaming on Netflix.
Whew!
We’ll be talking about all these projects over the next few weeks, but today, let’s talk Serena Williams. For over a year now, in addition to writing these newsletters, I’ve been immersed in the world of Serena Williams, serving as a story producer for the project. Over this past year, our team has conducted over 24 hours of interviews with Serena. We conducted dozens of hours more with key figures from her life and career. And we waded through—this is no exaggeration—more than 75,000 pieces of archival video and photos in order to tell the complete story of her career.
But today, I wanted to share one story from the production—if you’ll indulge me.
One day, we asked Serena Williams about The Perfect Serve. Not any perfect serve. The Perfect Serve, that platonic ideal of tennis excellence. Every single person we talked to, when we asked them to describe Serena’s tennis (and sometimes even before we had a chance to ask), they brought up that serve of her. But how did she think about it?
It was early January, and she had just returned home to Florida after spending the holidays on a beach with her daughters. It was the start of another busy day. She had business meetings and workouts and infants to attend to, but for now, she sat on a soundstage at a Palm Beach news station, and here came that question: What does hitting that type of serve feel like?
To Serena, the Perfect Serve comes on the ad-out side of the court. It’s hit not out wide, but towards the center of the court, straight down the T. It has a little kick. At the last moment, it cuts inside like a Clayton Kershaw slider back towards the deuce side, just out of reach of her opponent.
There wasn’t one particular serve Serena recalled when she thought about all this, no single moment from her career that she chased. It was always more of a feeling,. But, Serena warned, even considering the idea of the Perfect Serve posed a problem. Thinking makes it all fall apart.
“You need the right toss,” Serena said. “I never thought about having the right toss. You need to have the right knee bend. I absolutely agree. I never thought about having the right knee bend when I hit my best serves. You need to keep your head up, and pronate your wrists, and make sure you hit the ball at the right point. I never once thought of any of that when I was serving at my best. When I was not serving at my best, I thought of all of that.”
“For me,” Serena continued, “the perfect serve is not thinking. Just doing. And I think that is my career: I'm not a thinker.”
No…that’s not right. She corrected herself.
“Well, I'm an over-thinker, but I'm at my best when I'm not thinking and I'm just doing.”
“And it's funny you asked that,” Serena said. She let out a little laugh and started looking somewhere past the studio lights. Just last night, she told us, she had a dream. She was at Wimbledon, standing on the ad-out side of the court. Across from her, waiting to return, crouched Venus. In her dream, Serena served, and she didn’t think, she just did. The toss, the right-knee bend, the head up right, the wrists pronated, the ball striking her racquet just so. At the last second, the ball kicked inside. “It's something that I worked on a lot in my career to get that last hook,” she added.
And so, two years after she played her final match, Serena Williams dreamt of serving at Wimbledon’s Centre Court. Over and over, in the dream, Serena served in the same spot, striking the ball just right. She didn’t keep score, didn’t hoist a trophy. But every time she looked up, the ball bounced to the backstop, ace after ace.
🍿 Check out the trailers for “Welcome to the J-Rod Show” and “Simone Biles Rising.” You’ll be hearing a lot more about these projects soon!
🔥 It was a big week for Serena too! Check out her appearances on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Hot Ones.
🤯 I’m a sucker for stories like this one. A young baseball player was in Indiana for a tournament and went to visit a local card shop. A few minutes after he walked out, the shop got a call. He had just opened his cards and pulled a 1/1 Victor Wembanyama autograph card, worth thousands. Not bad!
⚾ For Texas Monthly, Jeff Miller travels to far North Texas to check out one the final factories in America still manufacturing baseball gloves.
I won't be watching. Serena's comments at the ESPYS were reprehensible.