Alexandra Shulman’s Notebook

Bitter Serena is too good to play the victim card

SERENA Williams stands resplendent in baby blue Balenciaga on the cover of American Vogue. Inside the magazine, her gown is held aloft by her young daughter, Olympia. She is posed as a fabulous emblem of womanhood – an astounding tennis player who has won 23 Grand Slam titles.

This year, when she was knocked out by Harmony Tan in an early round at Wimbledon, Williams made one of the most interesting observations I’ve heard from any sportsperson. She said she just didn’t have it in her to win that day. Another day maybe she would have, but that day, no.

It was a recognition of the element of luck in every match and an acknowledgment that there is never any certainty in sport. Some days your game is top or your competitor is weak

– and you win. Other days, it goes the other way. She sounded very grounded.

So I’m sorry that this exceptional female has used her Vogue moment to rant about the inequality she feels is intrinsic to being a woman: the unfairness, as she sees it, of her career being derailed by her sex because she is finding her desire to bring up her daughter (and possibly have more children) incompatible with the punishing schedule of professional tennis.

During her career, Serena has pushed her body to extremes in ways that a man wouldn’t have had to. She played while pregnant; she played while breastfeeding; she nearly died in emergency abdominal surgery. She’s proven to everyone that she’s given her tennis everything. And now she’s made the decision to ‘evolve away’ from that career at the age of 40.

Yet she isn’t making that move any earlier than her male peers. Novak Djokovic, still at the top of his game, is six years her junior. Roger Federer, at 41, is now seen as the gracious elder statesman of the game who appears to accept he is no longer number one. And, at 36, Rafa Nadal’s presence at tournaments is no longer a certainty in terms of his physical fitness.

Williams’s point is that it’s not her fitness or skill but the demands of motherhood that are driving her away from the game. And she resents the choice that she is making. But while it’s true that male players are able to father children with no effect on their careers, even the greatest players can’t defeat the wear of time.

I admire her honesty in saying she wishes she could feel more

positive about moving on. But it’s sad that such a winner is now playing the victim card over her biology.

How unfortunate that she leaves the court mired in bitterness, rather than building on her ability to inspire so many women

as she enters a new stage of life.

Why the Groucho gets full marks...

FOLLOWING in the great tradition of louche Soho joints, for 30-odd years artists, actors, publishers and film people have tumbled out of the Groucho Club doors late at night and worse for wear. Unlike contemporary hangout Soho House, which has rolled out identikit clubs across the world, the Groucho has never expanded into a chain – which has added to its individuality and credibility, if not its bank balance.

That might change after it’s bought by ArtFarm. Iwan and Manuela Wirth’s company, which owns art galleries and hotels such as the Fife Arms in Braemar, will no doubt have expansion plans.

While I’m not sure you could replicate the essence of the original Groucho and those late-night Soho festivities, I’m confident Iwan and Manuela will understand that you don’t want the same menu on the beach in Mykonos as you do on a rooftop in Shepherd’s Bush.

The heat is on – so have a garden party

OUR water reserves may be drying up and our parks looking more like the Serengeti by the day, but on the brighter side it’s been a rare treat to be able to rely on good weather.

We hosted a big seated dinner in our garden last weekend and I wondered why we had never done so before. And then I remembered that, generally, we couldn’t contemplate being able to seat 30 people outside without the faff of getting some kind of cover in case of rain. If hotter summers and less rainfall are predicted, at least we might be able to have more garden parties.

Coffee’s defeated by a splosh of camomile

COFFEE bars are everywhere and the options interminable. Even our local Tube station can whip up a frappuccino on the platform. But what happened to the gracious after-dinner coffee of yesteryear? The strong, dark kind served in beautiful small china cups on a tray at the end of the meal.

Coffee used to be as much part of the dinner party as wine. But at some point there has been a collective decision that nobody wants coffee after dinner any longer. That we’d all rather be given a splosh of mint or lemon verbena or camomile tea.

Yes, of course, caffeine stops some people sleeping. But some people can’t sleep well after cheese, and that hasn’t been struck off the menu. Coffee doesn’t deserve to be outlawed from our evenings and relegated to Starbucks at breakfast. Apart from anything else, what are we meant to do with those beautiful coffee sets?

How Jerry built an empire from f lats

WHEN I saw the wedding pictures of Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch, I remember thinking greater love has no woman than wearing a pair of flats to make her betrothed look taller, below, on their wedding day (even if they were Manolo Blahniks).

Six years on, and they’ve split. But those flats will certainly have paid off once the hurt fades, with a settlement for Jerry that’s said to include a global property portfolio most of us can only dream of.

Barclays needs some smooth operators

I SPENT about three hours last week on hold waiting for someone to answer my call to the Barclays mortgage department. Nobody ever did.

Not only is that three hours I will never get back, but they’ve also ruined a song I once really enjoyed. No longer will I be able to hear Sade’s Smooth Operator – played for the duration – without the dreary thought of my mortgage.