Venus Williams, the First Lady of Tennis

NEW YORK – So here is Venus Williams, with an aura that is just about as dazzling as her fuchsia dress. She has every right to be ornery, bummed, and short on answers. She has just meticulously unwrapped the god-awful thick contraption from her left knee, and now her skin itched with phantom crawlies, and as she went through the motion of sitting to standing, there was the unmistakable creak of bone-on-bone.

"It's been a pretty good day," she said cheerily, to a couple of young girls who were patiently waiting for the older Williams sister to sign their tennis balls. "Did you enjoy the match?"

Of course they did, they said through a spasm of giggles. As I observed this small snapshot of Venus' day from a few feet away, I couldn't help but think: So here is a mighty fine prototype of the modern female athlete.

At 29, Venus admits her off-court persona is sometimes closer to the 10-year-olds who follow her around the Flushing Meadows grounds. When the blinds are closed and the racquet is shoved aside, Venus says she can be so immature. We rarely see that playful, girlish side. What we see – what No. 3-seeded Venus continued to show us Wednesday as she fought through pain and vanquished 124th-ranked Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-4, 6-2, to advance to the third round of the U.S. Open – is a woman in full.

There are plenty of capable female role models in sports, and for some reason Venus is often left out of the conversation. It might be because she is often viewed as a Siamese twin to sister Serena, the better tennis player of the two and certainly the more controversial. But Venus is not Serena. Venus is the sort of athlete and sportswoman all young girls should hope to emulate.

The Williams sisters haven't always remembered to compliment their opponents, an irritating quirk pounded into their psyche at a young age, by a father who taught them it was his family against everybody else. Maturation and a more intuitive vision of how the world works has helped Venus blossom into a graceful ambassador of tennis.

So here is a mighty fine prototype of the modern female athlete. She was quick to praise Mattek-Sands' serve Wednesday, to note her opponent's aggressiveness. People kept trying to entice Venus into sharing details about her injury (it is thought to be patellar tendonitis, but considering Venus subscribes to the Bill Belichick school of communication, it could be anything; her ankle is also rumored to be not well). Venus was given several opportunities, in her post-match press conference and in conversations with fans, to elaborate on a condition that has dogged her all summer, and will likely keep her from reaching the finals of a tournament she last won in 2001.

"I hate this thing," was all she would say of the strapping contraption that curled around, above and below her knee. "Maybe if it were in pink or black, I could deal with it."

While her father Richard stood near a tunnel and squirmed every time his daughter stretched on a drop shot, Venus was clearly stronger than she had been two days earlier, when she barely escaped losing in the first round to Vera Dushevina. As Wednesday's match gained steam, as Richard continued to grimace, Venus defended strongly off her backhand and served decently, despite having limited explosion off her left leg. She won match point with a 117-mph serve.

"I told her she should pull out with a knee swollen like that. Both her knees are really hurting. She hasn't been moving well at all, not at all," Richard Williams said before the match.

"She was moving like a cat," Mattek-Sands said after it.

Between those disparate pairs of eyes is Venus' reality. She can't quite pace around with her usual sublime elegance, not with that brace and those knees, and her limited mobility slows her ostrich-like strides. Richard, subtle as ever, compared Venus to "a mule," in trying to illustrate her stubbornness. Perhaps it will be the trait that pushes her through this fortnight.

"I think I was moving pretty good," Williams said. "I put all my focus on my shots, getting to the ball. I try not to think about anything else.

"I'm very determined to play my best tennis, despite everything," she said. "I love playing this event and I'm going to do my best to win every round. That's what it is for me."

The thick bandage was similar to the support wrap that held together her knee at Wimbledon, when Venus, the seven-time Grand Slam single champion, lost to her sister Serena in the final. Venus won only one match in August, but hoped physical therapy and the magic powers of ice might carry her through the sport's final stretch.

After Monday's near loss, after she was forced to hail a trainer to help quiet her creaking knee and after a series of foot-fault missteps caused her mind to temporarily wander, Venus said it "would take a lot of prayer" if she were to recover in time for Round 2. She was dour and worried, but then came a mental shift across the next 24 hours.

She can follow her father's wishes and go home, or at least drop out of playing doubles with her sister. Or she can feed off the energy playing in New York clearly provides, and maybe get a visceral lift through the pain when she thinks of the joy on the faces of the young girls who trailed her around the Open campus Wednesday. Separated by close to two decades from her adoring groupies, the product of Compton's streets and the lady who now resides in a South Florida mansion joked with the girls as if she were one of them.

"I'm still playing well and I feel I'll continue to play better as the rounds go on," Venus said. "I'm trying not to make this injury a factor at all."

She's everything we need in a role model: powerful and fit, gracious and graceful, outspoken and independent, cultured and curious about the world outside the chalk lines. Venus Williams needed time to grow into the woman before us. A wrecked knee can't damage any of that.