Serena Williams.
Power: Serena Williams serves to Petra Kvitova in their WTA Championships match. Photo: AFP
Serena Williams dreams about the Australian Open, and not, despite having won the title five times, in a good way. It is a recurring nightmare that appears before grand slam finals. ''Not every time, but a lot of the times,'' Williams said. ''I dream that I leave, I'm in Australia and I leave the country to go do something in the States, and I don't make it back in time.''
So there. The great Williams can be beaten, even if just by fantasy default, for the reality is that her current form is untouchable, unreachable. The latest evidence: the WTA Championships, the season finale involving eight of the year's nine best-performed players - the injured Maria Sharapova aside - where the top-seeded Williams ended the round-robin phase with a record of six sets played for six sets won to qualify first and most imperiously for the semi-finals.
''I know that she's in a different level than me, and she showed this today,'' said fifth seed and 2011 Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova - the heavy-hitting Czech expected to provide Williams' heftiest competition - after being clobbered 6-2, 6-3. Hmmm. So much for that. A top eight? Not quite Snow White and the dwarfs, but there is a top one, and a next seven.
And, yet, evidence of just how harshly a 17-time grand slam champion can mark herself came after the recent US Open, when Williams declared herself to be almost disappointed with her year. She had just claimed her second singles major and ninth title for the season, having lost just four matches and won 67. We should all be so mediocre at what we do.
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But, this week, a pre-event interview with USA Today indicated the 32-year-old was a little more satisfied than she had previously sounded. ''This tournament for me is really big, but win, lose or draw here, I think I've had a really good year, a really good season, and I can end on a high point,'' Williams said before her opening match against Angelique Kerber. Victoria Azarenka is the only player to have beaten her twice this season, with Kerber (Cincinnati) and Sabine Lisicki (Wimbledon) accounting for the other two blemishes, all of them in the full three sets.
Indeed, there has been much talk in Istanbul this week about the fatigue being felt at the end of a long, demanding season, about how there are more eyes on holiday brochures than stats and scoresheets, and Williams says she is not immune from the year-end blues. But she is resolutely refusing to be diminished, and nor does there seem to be more than the remotest chance she will be defeated.
Her dominance is discussed in the locker-room, but not in a how-to-beat-her sense, as much as a we-really-just-don't-see-how-we-possibly-can way. At least third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska and Jelena Jankovic could laugh about it.
''We were just saying, I think now [it] is impossible to beat her when she's on fire,'' Radwanska said on Thursday. ''And of course we try and try, but, you know, maybe one day is gonna be the day that we can beat her.
''She's definitely really dominating now and beating everyone. It doesn't matter if someone is No.2, 3, 4, or 10, she's winning sometimes, you know, playing that good that she's beating so easy, even top-five players. I think whole year she was really playing unbelievable. I think for her it doesn't matter who is standing on the other side of the court. She's just playing her best tennis. There you go.''
By the end of day three, winless Radwanska and setless Sara Errani had been eliminated, with the victor in the Kvitova-Kerber match to join Williams in the semis, and Li Na needing to win just one set against Azarenka to book one qualifying spot from the white group.
Serena, meanwhile, planned to watch the tennis on TV on what was a night off.
Round-robin standings after day three: Red Group: Williams 3-0 (sets 6-0), Kvitova 1-1 (2-2), Kerber 1-1 (2-2), Radwanska 0-3 (0-6). White group: Li 2-0 (sets 4-1), Jankovic 1-1 (3-2), Azarenka 1-1 (2-2), Errani 0-2 (0-4).
Linda Pearce is a guest of the WTA Championships Istanbul.