The Williams sisters have made tennis history. The numbers speak for themselves: Venus and Serena have won, between them, 150 tournaments, including 30 singles grand slams and 14 doubles, as well as 5 Olympic gold medals since 1994 (only Venus is still in activity since his sister’s retirement in 2022). They also both reached world number one in the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) rankings. But to understand the major mark that the sisters left in this sport, it is fundamental to look at the catalytic role of their parents: mother Oracene Price and, above all, their father Richard Williams.
The incredible trajectory of this 83-year-old man, a perfect illustration of the American dream between misery, grandeur, decadence and redemption, is the guiding principle of a fascinating documentary broadcast on Canal+ this Sunday, December 10, entitled Richard Williams, game, set and legends. Venus and Serena Williams aren’t the couple’s only children. Richard already had 6 children from a previous marriage and Oracene gave birth to three daughters. But for their father, it is only his two youngest who seem to count. In 1978, before the birth of Venus, then Serena, Richard had a revelation.
“I went from nothing to something”
He knows nothing about tennis, a sport then mainly reserved for the white and bourgeois elite. He lives in Compton, the most deprived suburb of Los Angeles, plagued by gang violence and murders. We don’t know much about his life except that he was born in 1940 in Louisiana where the Ku Klux Klan was rampant, that he knew the cotton fields and theft as his only weapon for his own survival. . “I went from nothing to something,” summarizes this mysterious man, without a diploma but with an unparalleled chatter and art of communication.
In 1978, therefore, sitting on the sofa, he witnessed Virginia Ruzici’s victory at Roland-Garros, pocketing several thousand dollars in a few days, while he said he earned around 50,000 over the course of a year. “I’m not doing the right job,” he said to himself. It’s difficult to disentangle fact from fiction in Richard Williams but, to hear him say it, he convinces his new partner, Oracene Price, to have children again to make them tennis champions. For this, he went so far as to confiscate her contraceptive pills – he always says it.
READ ALSO Women’s sport: the long struggle of athletes to change their outfitPapa Williams is at the oven and the mill for his two budding champions who, from the age of four and a half, spend their days hitting little yellow balls under the protective gaze of the Compton gangs – it’s him who says it again. We readily recognize his visionary side when, in an archive video, he explains that if Venus will be a “champion”, Serena is a “pitbull” who will go even further than her older sister. With the nerve, he will approach star coach Rick Macci to take care of his two future stars. Richard lives through his daughters who, from a very young age, become his chance to get by in an America that loves nothing other than winners.
Throughout this 90-minute documentary largely devoted to this omnipresent father (who participates in the story, unlike his daughters who only intervene through archive videos), his good nature significantly outweighs his propensity to tell stories. How could we not feel compassion for the family, for example, when they found themselves heartily booed by the public in Indian Wells (one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in California) in March 2001 when Serena Williams entered the court in the final against Kim Clijsters.
The public then blamed the Williams clan for rigging the matches between the two sisters who had a string of good results in the biggest international tournaments. So, between suspicion of sporting unfairness and the whiff of racism, the public is having a field day. “I’m not trying to please people,” replied Richard Williams, entirely dedicated to his two daughters.
Weakened by two heart attacks, Richard Williams will gradually withdraw from the courts. He will again be the first mentioned by Serena, during her farewell to international competition in 2022. His wife Oracene will not have the same patience and files for divorce in 2002. “I have endured a lot of things for our children and I “I wasn’t going to do it anymore,” she comments laconically. Absolute recognition, the extraordinary destiny of Richard Williams was adapted for cinema in 2021 in The Williams Method with Will Smith playing his role. The American dream has come true.
Richard Williams, Game, set and legendsdirected by Stuart McClave, broadcast on Canal+ Sunday December 10 at 9 p.m.
