Serena returns, filled with confidence

People who deal in this sort of thing have established the woman ranked 172nd in the world as the betting favorite in next month's U.S. Open.

That is because Serena Williams, whose huge gaps in playing time have trashed her ranking, has no holes in her tennis resume and is not prone to cracks in her confidence. "My expectation," she said of her anticipated return to Flushing Meadows for the first time in two years, "is I have nothing to lose."

Williams was on Randalls Island Wednesday night as a "marquee player" -- that is, a star who is available when it fits her schedule -- for a World Team Tennis match between the Washington Kastles and New York Sportimes.

She had played a WTT event in Albany Tuesday night between the same two teams, and plans three pre-Open tune-up tournaments -- in Stanford, Toronto and Cincinnati -- ready to swoop into the Open like a superhero, even though she needed an injury exception to enter. (Only the top 100 players are automatic.)

"Probably I'm not the right person to judge her now," said Martina Hingis, herself a former No. 1 player before Williams and her sister Venus took the sport by storm a decade ago. "The last time I played was four years ago."

But in facing Williams the last two nights in the WTT's single-set format -- one loss, one win -- "Serena looked pretty sharp to me," Hingis said.

When it comes to a major tournament -- Williams has won 13, more than any other active female player, with three of those at the Open -- what has befallen her over the past 22 months hardly seems to matter.

There was her uncharacteristic meltdown in the 2009 Open semifinal, which cost Williams the match, a record $82,500 fine and probation; the mysterious foot injury suffered shortly after she won Wimbledon in 2010; the blood clots -- "a near-death experience," she called it -- requiring emergency medical treatment in February. "That's all behind me," she said.

During that whole rocky time, she repeatedly had withdrawn from commitments, citing injury and health.

Back on the tour only last month, with early losses at Eastbourne and Wimbledon, her popularity nevertheless continues to soar. Earlier this week, a Harris poll on the most popular female athletes had Williams No. 1 for the fourth time in the last five years.

And the tennis world will believe Williams can't win the Open when it sees it.

"My goal," Williams said, "is to get really fit. I have to get my confidence after being off for so long. It's the longest I've ever taken off . . . It's going to be a challenge for me but I'm always looking for a challenge.

"My plan is to do well in tournaments I play. If that means I get back to No. 1, that's great."

At No. 172, "I think that's when I'm most dangerous," she said. Apparently the bookies agree.