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PARTNERS NOW, RIVALS LATER: Serena Williams (right) talking to her sister and doubles partner Venus during a match. They will contest the singles final today. -- PHOTO: AFP
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THEY have watched Clijsters become a mummy, Henin reunite with her daddy, Hingis retire and Ivanovic appear, and they are still here.
They have acted in TV serials and been a soap opera themselves, designed clothes off court and modelled their ruthlessness on it, and they are still here.
Their bodies are not as reliable, their games not as dependable, the older sister hasn't won an event this year, the younger hasn't reached a Grand Slam semi-final since January last year, yet they are still here, in the final.
Unless you are from Mars, you know 'they' are Venus and Serena, arguably the most famous sisters since the Brontes put down their pens.
They are survivors and winners, and if there's been a better story in women's sport this decade than these hope-snuffing, drama-stirring, serve-smacking sisters, with 14 Grand Slams between them, I haven't heard it.
Serena cooks, Venus doesn't, but both have an appetite for the occasion. Both wear baleful looks, which seemed to say to their semi-final opponents, well done girls, now say a last prayer.
Venus manhandled Elena Dementieva 6-1, 7-6, Serena won 6-2, 7-6 against Zheng Jie, the first-set dismissals reflecting the intimidation they exhale and their comfort in big matches.
Venus, who moves like a startled deer, is the best athlete since Steffi Graf; Serena, whose game is played at a low growl, is the best player since Graf. Venus has a Phd in grass, Serena in competitiveness.
Talk of them deciding who wins finals is cheap, and disputed by a single stat: Serena leads 5-1 in Grand Slam finals. Even younger sisters are not so indulged.
As Serena said: 'We just leave everything out on the court. This is the finals of Wimbledon. Who doesn't want it?'
Once an all-Williams final was routine, now it's a rarity. In 2002-03, they played each other in four successive Slam finals; now it has been 19 Slams since they last met in a final. Like women's tennis, with them, too, anything can happen now.
If men's tennis can't look beyond Roger and Rafa, an incandescent rivalry but still a one-story show, the women's game has enough characters and intrigue to suggest its script was written by a modern-day Robert Ludlum.
Djokovic's upset aside, the men's early rounds were about as entertaining as a lecture in calculus. But the women's event? To exaggerate a little, and use the words Tamarine Tanasugarn uttered when she reached the quarter-finals: 'Wow, wow, wow.'
The new No 1 (Ivanovic) couldn't find her feet on grass and the old No 1 (Sharapova) was put out to grass. Soon, questions abounded. Were the Serbs spent, would Vaidisova choke, and who was this Chinese doubles player creating singular havoc?
Men don't care about each other's tennis wardrobe, which makes them occasionally duller than a politician's speech. Even Marat Safin turned from maverick to monk till the semis, keeping intact both cool and rackets (in his best year, he broke 48).
But the women's event never visits dullsville. Alla Kudryavtseva joked that she was motivated to beat Sharapova because of her outfit and it earned a million headlines.
Jelena Jankovic, world No 3, was shunted to court No 18, and Venus put on court No2 (called the 'graveyard of champions') and debates over sexism raged.
Said the miffed Serb with a straight face: 'I almost need a helicopter to go to my court.'
Men's interviews are filed in wastebaskets. Women's interviews are almost combed through for nuance. When Dementieva used the phrase 'family decision' about the all-Williams final, it was wrongly interpreted that she meant they decide who wins.
Immediately, a statement was issued, a correction made, and life on the colourful tour went on.
If the women aren't talking about the women, the men are. Once, Richard Krajicek was Wimbledon's resident idiot after claiming 80 per cent of the women were fat pigs.
This fortnight's nominee was Justin Gimelstob, who made unseemly personal remarks about women players and described Anna Kournikova as a 'bitch'.
The standard at this women's Wimbledon wasn't stirring, yet the entertainment is endless, and it still produces a theatre unrivalled in women's sport even by Lorena Ochoa and her club-wielding sisters.
Golf, anyway, doesn't do sexy and sneering all at once like Sharapova can. And they don't have sisters called Williams.
Six years ago when the sisters ruled tennis, Capriati, Clijsters, Hingis, Henin, Seles, Mauresmo used painted nails and sharp forehands to try and rattle their pedestal.
Now the other Americans have slid into oblivion, the Belgians have vanished, and the gifted east Europeans dominate (52 in the draw this year, only 28 in 1998).
But one thing remains constant and it's the sisters. Still scrapping, entertaining, confounding. And winning.
Tennis' geography may have changed, but it's making history that the Williams still do best.
rohitb@sph.com.sg
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