The line from the Back kiosk snaked passed a row of promotionalbooths, turned a corner and headed toward the USTA's National Tennis Center's outercourts. The boys and girls squinting against the September sunlight were waitingfor an autograph and a moment of eye contact from the rich and famous.

Beyond that, the fine points didn't matter. So when the broad-shouldered, African-Americanteenager with the beads in her hair strode past, a quarter of an hour late, they reacted.

"Oh my god! It's Venus! one boy shouted as she passed.

"No,silly," said his mother, mortified that the tennis star would overhear. "It's Serena."

She needn't have worried. Serena Williams kept on walking, unperturbed, maybe evenflattered. With the beaded hair and same sassy demeanor, you'd call her a serious Venus-wannabeif she wasn't her sister's sister.

The world knows little about Serena, except that she's a Williams. her identity, in and out oftennis is defined by the graviational pull of Venus. She's the shorter one,the stockier one, the less-consistent one.

She's more outgoing. "meaner on the court" (according to her mother), fifteenmonths younger and less sure of herself with a match on the line. She's the early-round victem, not the grand slam finalist.

Everything Serena has accomplished in two seasons of professional has beenset in the context of the Williams family. These are the home-schooled refuges of the ghetto with the controversialfather, the algebra lessions, the Palm Beach estate with the Rolls-Royce in thegarage.

You see them in press conference showing the same disingenuousness, punctuated by smirks that marktheir oddly detached public dialogues as inside jokes only another Williamscould understand. "They don't speak much, except to each other." says France's Sandrine Testud.

Serena has not won a professional tournament, but she basks in her big sister's glow.Without the unseeded Venus gallop to the finals of the 1997 U.S. Open and heremergence as a fixture in the Top Five of the Corel WTA Tour rankings, Serena'sline of admiriers- 75 feet and growing would not likely exist.