STANFORD -- As part of a promotional gag Monday, tennis star Venus Williams tried her hand at Simon, the blinking-light memory game from the 1980s. Williams also struggled for a bit with a cup-and-ball, which she ventured was the first toy ever invented.
Richard Williams had gone so far as to pull his daughters out of junior tournaments three years earlier, concluding that they were a waste of time. Instead, Venus and Serena played daily practice sessions against male competition.
But Oakland was chosen as the site of Venus' grand unveiling, in part because of a looming rule change. The Women's Tennis Association was gearing up to implement the so-called "Capriati Rule," which would limit how much teenagers could play until they were 18.
Venus' arrival created a stir. Tournament officials issued 252 press credentials that night, according to tennis.com. The year before, there were only 24 press credentials.
"It was almost like Elvis arriving in the building," Rick Macci, Venus' coach at the time, later wrote in his autobiography.
Williams broke in against 58th-ranked Shaun Stafford, a 25-year-old former NCAA champion, and slogged her way to a 6-3, 6-4 victory before a crowd of about 800. Wearing a peach T-shirt and a white skirt, Williams looked anything but rusty after such a long gap between competitions.
Only 58 percent of her first serves were good, but she picked up her game when the match was tied 4-4 in the second set and showed hints of the powerful strokes to come. Reporters went gaga for the new star, and, at her post-match news conference tried to sneak in a few questions to her little sister.
Along the way, Williams' debut caught the eye of a few tournament veterans. Several of them were curious enough to stick around to see the show (at least, before they headed across the parking lot to the Rolling Stones concert at the Coliseum).
"She's athletic and fast and has a good serve for someone who is 14 years old," Lindsay Davenport, then the seventh-ranked player in the world, said that night. "She's got some stuff to improve on, but I think she will."
It was Williams' second-round match that really opened eyes -- and was clearly still sticking in her craw Monday.
Williams won the first set 6-2 and led the second 3-1 against Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario, who at the time was the No. 2 player in the world. She gave Sanchez-Vicario such a scare that veteran tennis writer Bud Collins began to ponder the greatest upsets in sports history.
"Forget tennis," Collins said in the stands, as quoted by Steve Tignor of tennis.com. "Forget Ali-Frazier. Forget the '69 Mets. The history of sports. A girl walks off the street, never playing a junior tournament in the last 31/2 years, never played a pro tournament and beats the No. 1 player in the universe. If you think of it in that context, it's make-believe."
But Sanchez-Vicario rallied back to win handily. So what was the turning point? A more aggressive serve? A change in attacking the net? "I remember, more than anything, that she took a bathroom break," Williams said Monday, smiling wide.
It wasn't just a bathroom break. It was a savvy veteran's bathroom break -- a well-executed timeout to slow Williams' momentum. Sanchez-Vicario vanished for 10 minutes in the middle of the second set.
Sanchez-Vicario returned, clearly refreshed, and won the last nine games of the match.
"I never won another game," Williams said Monday. "So it was a good strategy for her against a youngin'.
"I always believed in myself. I always believed that I could win any match. But I didn't know how to win that match."
Still, a star was born. Within months, Williams inked a mega-deal with Reebok. By 2000, she won the first of her five Wimbledon titles. By 2002, she was the No. 1 player in the world.
More recently, she reached the semifinals at Wimbledon before being ousted by Angelique Kerber. Soon, she will start gearing up for her fifth Olympics (Aug. 6-14).
Retirement talk is nowhere on the horizon.
"When I'm good and ready I'll be gone," Williams said Monday. "But that time isn't yet."
Williams gets a first-round bye at this Bank of the West Classic, where she is the two-time champion (2000 and '02). She will play the winner of Tuesday's match between Kristyna Pliskova and Magda Linette.
A tournament win here would represent a neat milestone for Williams: Winning her 50th career title back at the tournament that launched her toward stardom.
When Williams walked into her press session Monday, a reporter asked her what it felt like to be back.
"It feels good," Venus said. "It reminds me of a lot of good times."
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