After losing the first set, 6-0, Serena Williams took a seat. Tired and weary playing in a tournament in Australia, she looked up at the chair umpire.
“Is it illegal to order an espresso?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s allowed. Is it allowed? I’m tired.”
Someone came over and told her it would be OK. He asked what she would take with it.
“Black,” she said. “As black as it gets.”
When it came in a paper cup, she gulped it down.
It must have done the trick.
She won the next two sets, 6-3 and 6-0.
“I am a coffee drinker,” she told reporters after the match. “I didn’t have mine this morning and I was just feeling it, so I just had to get some coffee into me.”