US Open Re-Lived: 2015 - When Vinci beat Serena
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2021
⏱️ 72 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“History was thwarted not with a spectacular act of violence, but with a half volley. Roberta Vinci tiptoed near the net and barely brushed the ball with her racket, depositing it gently on Serena's side of the court, where it bounced multiple times and died a quiet death.”
That was Sports Illustrated’s take on the final act of one of tennis’ biggest ever where-were-you-when moments as Roberta Vinci ended Serena Williams’ quest for the Grand Slam at the US Open in 2015.
In this episode, we remind ourselves of how Serena had dominated since turning 30, look back at her title runs at the first three majors of 2015, explain the story of her emotional return to Indian Wells that year, reminisce about the hype in New York as she went for history, and analyse how it all went wrong in the semi-finals.
What were the signs that Serena was stressed? How did Vinci turn the match around? And could Serena have done anything differently?
The Tennis Podcast is presented by Catherine Whitaker and David Law, and features Matt Roberts. It is produced weekly year-round, and daily during the Grand Slam tournaments. It is crowdfunded by listeners each December.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Billie Jean King. This is Mary and Bartori. I'm Matt's Vylander. This is Mary |
| 0:04.8 | Carillo. This is Pam Shriver. I'm Sandra Winkert. I'm Lighten Hutt. This is Yannick Noah and you're |
| 0:09.6 | listening to the tennis podcast. |
| 0:12.8 | Well, hello folks and welcome back to the past. Our second US Open relived episode of 2021 when we |
| 0:32.1 | will be travelling back not too far to a time that even Matt Roberts remembers. We're travelling |
| 0:38.9 | back to 2015 and Serena Williams failed attempt to complete the calendar slam at the US Open. Of |
| 0:50.5 | course, she already held the Serena slam at that time and that's probably something that is overlooked |
| 0:57.2 | because of what ended up happening in that semifinal match with Roberta Vinci. That truly |
| 1:05.0 | incredible semifinal match with Roberta Vinci which I've just watched highlights off this morning. |
| 1:11.2 | It was a very, very fun way to start my day. David, this isn't far enough in the past for you to |
| 1:18.9 | be sort of grinning like a cheshire cat. What's your level of pumpedness about this pod? It's |
| 1:23.4 | pretty high. I still found myself grinning and the reason is that I realise how much I'm capable |
| 1:30.4 | of forgetting in the space of six years which I really didn't expect to have done. I thought I was |
| 1:36.5 | to be honest, when we were doing the short list of US Open relived options that we were going to have |
| 1:44.2 | our guest editors choose from, I probably wouldn't have had this one at the top of my list at the time |
| 1:50.8 | and now that we're doing it and now that I've researched it a bit, I'm really glad we're doing it. |
| 1:57.8 | Helped by the fact that we've got the most incredible guest editor. But again, I just feel like I |
| 2:04.8 | hadn't really quite saved in my mind just how dominant Serena Williams was and when I started to |
| 2:13.4 | go through these, the results that Matt and Chris Albert Leigh had accumulated and saw some of the |
| 2:20.4 | footage and sight to remember being on sight at the time and what I was thinking and feeling |
| 2:26.9 | about Serena Williams's dominance, it made it all feel actually this is really something now that |
| 2:33.8 | we need to talk about particularly now. It's timely isn't it? Yes, it feels it. I will spare the listeners |
... |
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