As Serena Williams left the interview room Monday evening and walked down a long corridor, I asked her if she had seen the Althea Gibson documentary that is making the rounds.
“I just got it,” she said, pointing to her bag. “I’m looking forward to watching it.”
I’m not sure if Williams should watch the film at such an emotional time or just wait until her run at a Grand Slam is over. The story of Gibson, the great tennis champion who died in 2003 and would have been 88 on Aug. 25, dredges up anger, inspiration and gratitude.
I have watched “Althea” three times. Each time, the connection between Williams and Gibson becomes clearer. Past to present; present to past.
At a willowy 5 feet 11, Gibson was built more like Serena Williams’s sister Venus. But Gibson’s temperament — the fire, the passion, the laser focus, the take-no-prisoners approach — was a precursor to Serena’s.
Asked to describe her style, Gibson, barely smiling, said, “Aggressive, dynamic — and mean.”
As a teenager, she was more comfortable in Harlem pool halls and bowling alleys than in classrooms.
Althea Gibson was her generation’s Serena Williams, and vice versa. Gibson’s Harlem was Williams’s Compton.
Who would win a match between them?
I rarely get into such historical conjecture. But after watching and rewatching “Althea,” which will be shown on PBS on Friday, a match between them in their primes would have been one for the ages. No one budging, no one giving in — Gibson because that is how blacks of her era survived, Williams because that’s just the way she is.Althea was a serve-and-volleyer; very, very aggressive; big wingspan; built more like Venus than Serena,” Rex Miller, who produced “Althea,” said in a recent interview. “Give Althea the same equipment, a little more coaching, time to get familiar with the modern game: It would have been a real matchup.”Gibson discovered education later in life, graduating at age 26 from Florida A&M, which she attended on a tennis scholarship. She was an incredible table tennis player, played the saxophone, cut an album, became a professional golfer and even starred in a western with John Wayne.
“I was just amazed with all the things that she did,” Miller said.
With each viewing of “Althea,” I also came away with an unshakable sadness. Her life, while triumphant, did not have a happy ending. She was certainly acknowledged for her tennis triumphs as they unfolded in 1956, when she won the French Open, and in 1957 and 1958, when she won back-to-back championships at Wimbledon and in what would become the United States Open. Tennis was not the multimillion-dollar bonanza it is today, and those volatile times were not right for a woman, particularly a black woman, to be accorded mythic stature or even a job as a pro at a prestigious country club.
Things change, but often not quickly enough to save everyone’s life and sanity. Today, an African-American, Katrina Adams, is president of the United States Tennis Association.Serena Williams is currently the beneficiary of a love fest, though this has not always been the case. Many of those throwing roses along Williams’s path to glory once threw darts. There has been criticism over her angry outbursts on court, questions about whether she played in enough matches each year and even her body type.
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