Venus Is Doing Fine by Doing Things Her Way

NEW YORK — To the beaded lady of this New York circus, sometimes the sideshow can get pretty strange. Venus Williams keeps telling herself it is pretty cool that a 17-year-old from Compton should become the first woman since Pam Shriver in 1978 to make the U.S. Open’s semifinals in her tournament debut. But then she gets brought back to Earth by strangers who act as though Venus is from Mars.

“Venus,” one inquiring mind begins, “Lindsay Davenport said when you were at Indian Wells, you passed each other, and you didn’t smile back to her, and she got upset when you did not smile back.”

A quizzical look crosses Williams’ 17-year-old face, beneath the hair that takes nine hours to braid. “Wait a minute,” she says.

“Bear with me,” this person persists. “And then, Joannette Kruger said that when you smiled at her at one of the changeovers, that was a sign that you were saying, ‘Hey, is this all you can do?’ ”

“I smiled at her?” Williams asks.

“That’s what she said. Do you recall smiling at her?”

“No. It was an amused look.”

“Pardon?”

Venus shakes her head, braids rattling like a bamboo curtain. She says, “Look, why don’t you guys tell me what they want me to do? They should come up to me and say, ‘Venus, I want you to smile, so I can feel better?’ It’s not about that. When I want to smile, I’ll smile. If I don’t want to, I’m not going to. I think it’s a little bit peevish. Smiling, what does that have to do with anything?”

You go, girl.

Don’t let them get you down. It is nothing but Venus envy. Do what you like. Smile. Don’t smile. Have a nice day. Have a good hair day. You’re entitled. You earned it.

When you come to the U.S. Open as the 66th-ranked woman in the world--never having won a pro tournament--and you knock off Larisa Neiland (ranked 112th), then Gala Leon Garcia (No. 64), then Anke Huber (No. 8), then Kruger (No. 45), then Sandrine Testud (No. 17), for a chance at becoming the fairy-tale princess of the new Arthur Ashe Stadium, you shouldn’t have to change a thing.

Richard Williams, her father and self-appointed coach, once called his daughter “the ghetto Cinderella.” By midnight here tonight, he gets to see whether she remains the belle of the ball or if the girl from Compton turns into a pumpkin.

What a story this is.

Williams and his wife, Oracene, have five daughters. Two end up playing tennis in America’s preeminent tournament, at ages 17 and 15, side by side in doubles.

The father tries to talk Venus out of entering the tournament. He wants to bring her along gradually, prefers that she practice her French, take her guitar lesson, conduct a free clinic for inner-city kids, drive her new Jeep carefully to the mall and try to curb a shopping habit that even Venus concedes is “out of control.”

Venus persuades him to let her play. (“A little bargaining,” she says. “Hardball, you know.”) Her little sister, Serena, can tag along.

The timing is appropriate. New York is dedicating its new national tennis center to Ashe. The ceremony happens to fall on the 70th birthday of Althea Gibson, who won this tournament 40 years ago and still resides in nearby New Jersey. If the Williams sisters have aspirations, Ashe and Gibson are their inspirations.

First thing the Williams girls do here on Aug. 23 is play a sister-brother charity match with Luke and Murphy Jensen for a good cause, “Arthur Ashe Kids Day.”

A child of about 5 asks afterward, “How do you play tennis?”

“With a racket,” Venus responds, bluntly.

Her baby sister steps forward and explains tennis to the youngster, a little more comprehensively.

At 10, Venus wanted to be an astronaut. Now, she says without batting an eye, “Serena and I will be fighting for the No. 1 ranking some day, when she joins the tour. We are going to play doubles together, which is great. But we have already discussed what will happen if we play each other in singles. It will be each woman for herself. I will pretend not to know her: ‘Who is she?’ ”

Their father has been absent for the Open’s first 11 days but is motoring up from Florida--he doesn’t fly--to make Venus’ match today against Irina Spirlea on center court.

Oracene Williams attends each match, and gets a kiss the minute it ends.

“Venus is nice to everyone,” she says, defending her daughter’s inalienable right to smile or not smile.

And if this precocious teen kisses her mother tonight--which would mean that she has just become the first unseeded player to reach a U.S. Open women’s singles championship match--the beaded, braided, unmistakable face of Venus Williams could become, overnight, as famous as any in the global community of tennis.

There are approximately 1,800 beads in the braids of Venus Williams, an estimated 900 white, 450 red and 450 blue. What we have here is Bo Derek with a backhand.

For her first Wimbledon tournament this summer, she fooled around with purple, green and white. That was unlucky. The beads make up part of Venus’ cosmic makeup, as well as cosmetic makeup. After some dropped to the ground during her last match, Williams handed them to young fans, then said, in all seriousness, “My goal coming in was not to lose one bead, so I definitely didn’t meet my goal and I’m kind of upset about that.”

Williams lost the first set she played here. She hasn’t lost one since.

The crowd is with her.

“I’ve actually never played in an audience that wasn’t for me,” Venus says.

Her sisters--Serena, Isha, Lyndrea and Yetunde--are with her.

“I’m 17, I have a good family, a good career and three dogs,” Venus says.

Everything is proceeding ahead of schedule. She is the first American-born teen to make the semifinals since Jennifer Capriati in 1991. She is the first unseeded semifinalist since Mima Jausovec of Yugoslavia, 21 years ago. She is about to crack the top 50 in the rankings for the first time.

Her fearlessness is startling, as when she upsets the eighth-ranked Huber and sums it up by saying, “I think the pressure got to her.” Her athleticism is uncanny, as it was years ago when her original coach, Rick Macci, first went to Compton to see her. Venus excused herself to go to the restroom, then walked the first 10 steps on her hands, followed by 10 back flips.

When a match is over, Williams skips to the net. It is some sight, a 6-foot 1-inch woman with 1,800 beads in her hair, skipping.

She says, “I’m tall, I’m black, everything about me is different.”

Nobody expected her to do this well, this soon.

Nobody now is asking, “Who is she?”