Richard Williams had just turned off his daughter’s match against Roberta Vinci when he picked up my call.
I had wanted to check in with Williams for a few weeks. With his youngest daughter, Serena, closing in on history Friday, it seemed as good a time as any to reach out.
I had missed the first set but saw that Serena had won 6-2, and assumed, as so many others did, that she would waltz into the final.
Williams had turned the match off in the second set.
“She wasn’t doing that well,” he said in a way that went much deeper than the words he spoke.