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Each era has its own batch of fixed ideas...which are thankfully regularly swept aside by a new champion who shatters the quickly erected and baseless logic put forth by observers and diverse commentators.

You must certainly remember the era when Martina Hingis was viewed as condemned when the Williams sisters arrived on the circuit. At the time, most observers, including the so-called specialists, commented on the incapacity of the Suisse player to thwart the power of the Williams sisters. According to general opinion, Martina was no match against the blows of the high-powered African-Americans. She should just bow out and leave room for a new form of tennis with a new breed of players. It was now considered mandatory to possess the muscle structure of a body builder if a player hoped to win Grand Slam titles.

Of course, these types of comments, while generalized, were not only baseless, but also improperly thought out, for tennis is obviously not a sport in which large muscle mass constitutes an advantage but in fact a handicap.

The ability to change directions is intrinsic to the game of tennis, and a high level game requires that players be in constant balance at the moment of a shot. Yet muscle volume is a very heavy weight that, when thrust at high speed, makes direction or balance transfer all the more difficult.

In addition, the two sisters were always viewed as one and the same, while morphologically, they presented very different characteristics: if one is very muscular, the other is willowy and thin.

The argument in favor of power again loses its credibility.

The Williams sisters are quite simply great champions. They are players with an exceptional mental force, as Serena recently showed in winning the Australian Open. She was ranked 80th in the world, had only competed in 14 tournaments in two years, was clearly overweight and was catalogued an underdog before the tournament began.

She proves once again that whatever your level of play, provided that you win in the end....anything else is possible. Coming from behind in the third round against Nadia Pétrova, trailing 6/1 5/3, she saves three match points before winning 6/3 in the third set. She finishes the match dominated in terms of points won (84 compared to 89 for her opponent), but she wins.

The level of her game continued to rise throughout the tournament and she finally tramples Maria Sharapova 6/1 6/2 in the final.

No, the Williams sisters are not curious physical beasts, but just young women with boundless ambition, self-confidence superior to the norm, and an exceptional fighting spirit.

Contrary to popular belief, there does not exist a miracle recipe to beat them, and it is certainly not by entering the endless debate about power shots...They have dominated tennis throughout the years because of the qualities outlined above, but tennis is a sport where every player can express themselves with their unique qualities and characteristics. This is proved a little while later with the rise of Justine Henin, the frail, tiny, 5’6” Belgian who became #1 thanks to her mental attitude, the variety of her game and her capabilities of movement.

Patrick Mouratoglou - January 25, 2007