Venus Williams: Starting from the bottom

Williams, 30, has won five Wimbledon and two U.S. Open women's singles titles. She and her younger sister played tennis since childhood, practicing five hours a day, the excellence of focus, coupled with unlax discipline, laid the foundation for the two sisters to dominate the tennis world.

In his new book, Come to Win, Williams urges young people to get involved in sports because there are many valuable life lessons to be learned from them: "Sports teach you how to compete, how to fight back, how to Win. It's the most fundamental way to build your confidence." The following is a summary of her speech at the National Association of Journalists:

I'm from Compton, California. I learned to play tennis when I was four years old. Tennis is a family sport. We would go out to the court every day after school with a whole cart full of tennis balls, and I would always fight to hit every ball in the cart, and if Dad didn't let me finish, I would start crying.

My sisters and I grew up in a very unique family. My dad was a dreamer and my mom was very down-to-earth. My parents were role models for us. This idea, at the time, was very unusual. Most people teach girls to conform to the expectations of society, but our parents teach us to have freedom of thought, to follow our path, and exert our influence when we grow up.

Don't be afraid to be different

Tennis has taught me many things. What I want to talk about today is sports and life, from sports can learn a lot of valuable life enlightenment, so I encourage everyone to exercise, even if not professional players also doesn't matter.

Sports let people learn to "focus and work hard". You have to be very focused, and very disciplined, to play well, you have to practice every day. If you want to win a game, you have to stay focused in practice, without distractions, and mistakes. The same is true in life, whether in school or at work, if you want to achieve, you must focus.

"Discipline" is so important, Serena and I would often say to ourselves, "I played very undisciplined today. I didn't do what I needed to do." Discipline takes time to maintain, it's not easy, and sports are a great way to learn discipline, especially when you have a good coach like I did with my parents, who instilled discipline in me, and I learned the importance of discipline without realizing it.

Exercise can also build confidence. When I talk to young people, I always tell them that there is nothing more rewarding than pushing yourself to reach higher goals, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I always tell them that sports make you know yourself better and have more confidence in yourself: "If I can do it on the court and on the school team, I can do it in the classroom and life."

Not only that, but exercise can also help you prepare for both success and failure. In my case, sports taught me how to succeed: how to be a winner and how to do whatever it takes to win. What's more, sports also taught me to face failure and helped me to succeed in the future.

I became a professional tennis player when I was 14 years old, but I didn't play much at that time. I spent most of my time in school, but I had to spend five hours practicing after school every day. My parents didn't want us to only play basketball in the future, and we couldn't do anything else, so they required us to have good grades in school, or we were not allowed to practice.

It wasn't until 1997 that I started to become a full-time player, and I started to make my mark very quickly. I was originally ranked around 200, and by the end of 1997, I was in the top 20, because that was my goal.

Get into the habit of writing your goals down

In my family, we always set goals and write them down. My father used to say, "Don't put goals in your head, put them in black and white." I think this habit is important because when you look at your written goal, it becomes imprinted on your mind as a visual, living thing. My goal that year was to break into the top 20, WTA rookie of the year, etc.

But even though I play well, I haven't won any major championships yet. In 1999, Serena and I reached the semi-final of the US Open. My sister played very well in the match, and I, facing a tough opponent, Singas, got nervous, made a lot of mistakes, and lost. For me, it was a very painful loss because I thought it would be a matchup between the two of us.

This failure taught me that you have to do your best on the court, keep playing the way you play, and never let go because of nervousness, stage fright, or doubt. It was this failure that led to so many of my future successes. It was an important lesson. Sometimes you need to have this kind of tragic loss to understand and move on to the next level.

Not everyone is born with the ability to compete. In my case, I consider myself a talented player, but in my early years, I didn't know how to motivate myself until Serena showed me how to do it.

The two sisters played together and learned from each other a lot. In 1998, we were in Australia at the Sydney International Invitational Tournament, when she was 16 years old, and she was playing against world No. 3 Lindsay Davenport. She was 1-6-2-5 down in two sets, fought her way back, and came from behind to beat Davenport unexpectedly.

Learn the fighting spirit from my sister

Before long, I met a strong enemy in another match, she had beaten me three times, so that day in the change of the match, I put the towel in my hands, cover my face and cry, "I can't lose to her again, again my future will be ruined, I can't be defeated......" In about 30 seconds. I stood up, thinking about how my sister had reversed the victory in Sydney with her unyielding fighting spirit, which I needed. In the end, I won my first singles championship, and on that day, I learned to use my Stoic mind to pull myself together and win.

There are so many lessons from sports, especially those failures. Serena and I are always reviewing our mistakes. We are never complacent: "Look, I played that shot so well. You'd say, "Look how bad that shot was. I'm embarrassed. I want to disappear from the course!"

So I learned to be humble. No matter how well I play, no. 1 in the world, or how many championships I win, I will always lose. You have to learn to fail again and be open to criticism like "someone will never get back to the top."

Women's professional tennis has seen major changes in recent years, including shortening the length of the annual season to ease the physical burden on players. This is exactly what my sister and I have been insisting on since our debut. We don't play too many matches so that we can stay healthy and play longer.

In another major change, Wimbledon and other major opens have finally agreed to "equal prize money" for men and women. For many years, the prize money of female tennis players has always been lower than that of male players. A few years ago, we launched a campaign to loudly call for reform. The main reason is not for money, but because female players are elite athletes and female role models.

I even went to talk to the Wimbledon organizers. Then, when they did agree to change, I couldn't believe it, and I hoped that it would be my legacy in women's tennis that people would remember: that Venus Williams, in addition to winning Grand Slam titles, also helped elevate the status of women.