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      Serena Williams Willed Her Way to a Glorious Goodbye

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      Her last match — at the U.S. Open and probably of her career — was a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.It was match point, which Serena Williams had faced many times before. It was career point, which was startlingly new territory for one of the greatest athletes of any era.But Williams, on this night like no other at the U.S. Open, remained true to herself and her competitive spirit on Friday, with the end of her 27-year run as a professional tennis player suddenly becoming very real.Yes, Ajla Tomljanovic was about to serve for a place in the fourth round, at 40-30 with a 5-1 lead in the third set. But Williams, clearly weary after nearly three hours of corner-to-corner tennis, was not yet prepared to accept what looked inevitable.She saved one match point with a swinging backhand volley. She saved a second with a cocksure forehand approach that Tomljanovic could not handle. She saved a third with a clean forehand return winner that had fans in the sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium shouting: “Not yet! Not yet!”“I’ve been down before,” Williams said later. “I think in my career I’ve never given up. In matches, I don’t give up. Definitely wasn’t giving up tonight.”She saved a fourth match point. She saved a fifth, and by now it was clear, as the winners and bellows and clenched fists kept coming, that Williams would get a fitting finish.A record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title in her farewell tournament at age 40 was always going to be a long shot. An inspiring last dance was no guarantee, either, given all the matches and miles in her legs and all the rust on her game in recent weeks.But she salvaged it in New York. She conjured it with all of her pride, power and sheer will. She found a familiar gear in the second set of her opening-round victory over Danka Kovinic. And she stayed in that groove as she defeated the No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit in the next round before coming up against Tomljanovic, a tall and elegant baseliner who represents Australia but lives in Florida, and who was born and raised in Croatia.A capacity crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium roared for Williams throughout Friday night’s match. Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBarring a major change of heart from her much more famous opponent, Tomljanovic will be the answer to the trivia question “Who was the last player to face Serena Williams in an official match?”But while Williams could not fend off the sixth career point, striking a low forehand into the net, she did strike a much more appropriate final note at Flushing Meadows than if she had chosen to forgo this final comeback.At last year’s Wimbledon, she retired with a leg injury before the first set of her first-round match was done, crying as she hobbled off the Center Court grass where she had won so often.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open was very likely the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Glorious Goodbye: Even as Serena Williams faced career point, she put on a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.The Magic Ends: Zoom into this composite photo to see details of Williams’s final moment on Ashe Stadium at this U.S. Open.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Court: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to each other’s.She was 39 then and took nearly another year to return to competition. But as the tears came for a different reason on Friday night on court in her post-match interview, and then again in her news conference, it was evident that she had gotten a measure of what she was searching for by returning to play.She gave herself a suitably grand stage to thank her fans and her family, including her parents, Richard Williams and Oracene Price, and her big sister, Venus Williams, who was watching from the players box just as she did when Serena won the family’s first Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open in 1999. They went on to win 29 more, Serena finishing with 23 and Venus, though not yet retired, almost certainly finishing with the seven she has now.“I wouldn’t be Serena if there wasn’t Venus, so thank you, Venus,” Serena said. “She’s the only reason that Serena Williams ever existed.”Though Williams was still struggling to use the word “retirement” herself on Friday, the WTA Tour was not as it congratulated Williams on a grand career. Nor did Williams give herself much wiggle room when asked what it might take to bring her back for more.“I’m not thinking about that; I always did love Australia, though,” she said with a smile, referring to the next Grand Slam tournament on the calendar: the Australian Open in January.But that sounded much more playful than serious, and she soon turned reflective, talking about motherhood and life away from competition, which she has already experienced at length during the coronavirus pandemic and in her latest year away from tennis.“It takes a lot of work to get here,” she said of the U.S. Open. “Clearly, I’m still capable. It takes a lot more than that. I’m ready to, like, be a mom, explore a different version of Serena. Technically, in the world, I’m still super young, so I want to have a little bit of a life while I’m still walking.”It is Williams’s call, of course (of course!), but it seems the right choice and the right time. Though she is correct that her level was often remarkably and surprisingly high this week, it is also true that the last time she lost this early in singles at the U.S. Open was in her first Open appearance in singles in 1998.Tomljanovic did herself proud on Friday, effectively countering Williams’s signature power and handling the deeply partisan and sometimes unsportsmanlike crowd with great composure and dignity. Fans cheered for Tomljanovic’s missed serves and errors, and with the match in its final stages, some shouted “Serena!” in the midst of her service motion.She said she borrowed a trick from Novak Djokovic, who won the 2015 U.S. Open men’s singles final against Roger Federer in a very pro-Federer atmosphere by, he said, imagining that they were cheering “Novak” instead of “Roger.”Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia proved a formidable challenger for Williams. She won the final six games of the match.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“I mean, I used that,” Tomljanovic said. “And I also, just, really blocked it out as much as I could. It did get to me a few times, internally. I didn’t take it personally because, I mean, I would be cheering for Serena, too, if I wasn’t playing her. But it was definitely not easy.”Tomljanovic gathered herself impressively after Williams seized the second set in a tiebreaker and then broke Tomljanovic’s serve in the opening game of the third set. Tomljanovic also graciously and respectfully hit all the right notes in her on-court interview, even though she had been reluctant to follow Williams to the microphone.“I have known Ajla since she was 12 years old, and I have never been prouder of her,” said Chris Evert, the former No. 1 who has been a mentor to Tomljanovic but watched the match from afar, in Aspen, Colo., where one of her sons was to be married on Saturday.Tomljanovic’s victory will certainly provide premium content for Netflix, which has been following her and several other players closely all season as it films the tennis version of “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” its behind-the-scenes automobile racing series.But Tomljanovic, who swept the last six games of what is almost certain to be Williams’s final match, is also an unseeded 29-year-old veteran who has never been ranked in the top 30 in the world and has yet to advance past the quarterfinals in a major tournament. That she had the tools to stand toe-to-toe with Williams and prevail is one more hint that Williams’s time at the top of the game has truly passed.What was also clear on Friday as the match extended well past two hours and into a third set was that Williams’s stamina and speed were fading. That is understandable with her lack of match play in recent months and in light of all the physical and emotional energy she was absorbing and expending with the public roaring her on. She also had played an intense doubles match the night before in Ashe Stadium, losing in two close sets with Venus.But understandable does not negate the reality that she looked late to the ball, and often nowhere near the ball, as Tomljanovic broke up baseline rallies by firing winners to break her for a 5-1 lead.It looked, just for a moment, as if Williams, one of the most ferocious competitors in tennis history, would have a sotto voce finish.Instead, she dug in and dug deep, drawing strength from past revivals and again showing no fear of swinging for the lines with a Grand Slam match at stake.Should we really have been surprised?As the points and great escapes piled up, Pam Shriver, the ESPN analyst sitting courtside, turned to those of us in the same row and said wide-eyed, “There should be a documentary just about this game.”Not a bad call, but perhaps better to make it the final act of a documentary about this week, when Williams shook off the rust for three final rounds and gave the crowds and all those who have followed her for nearly three decades, through triumphs and setbacks, an extended reminder of what made her great. 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      Serena Williams Loses in Three Thrilling Sets to Ajla Tomljanovic

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      As Serena Williams walked onto the court at the U.S. Open this week, the question was how the greatest player in modern tennis would handle the pressures of what she said could be her last Grand Slam tournament.She had looked rusty and slow all summer, but over the course of four days and two prime-time matches, it looked like the 40-year-old just might mount a magical, storybook run for a 24th major title.That dream ended on Friday night in a heartbreaking three-set loss to Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia. To the end, the almost 24,000 fans who packed Arthur Ashe Stadium shouted and cheered her every point as she fought against an opponent who was 11 years younger.“It’s been the most incredible ride and journey I’ve ever been on in my life,” Williams, wiping tears, said on court after the match.The loss, 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-1, likely spelled the end of a 27-year career that forever changed the world’s perception and understanding of women — especially Black women — in sports. The highlight reels will show that Williams went kicking and screaming, saving five match points, blasting away to the end, making every stroke count as the match passed the three-hour mark.“I don’t give up,” Williams said. “Definitely wasn’t giving up tonight.”Williams has been the hottest ticket in New York this week and that continued on Friday in a match that was witnessed by some of the biggest names in sports and pop culture. And for long spells Williams delivered what they came for — the power and ferocity, the precision and passion for the game that have characterized her career for a quarter of a century.On another night, in another season years ago, it might have been enough. But on this night, a few weeks before her 41st birthday, Williams could not maintain the rarefied level of play that has powered so many of her victories. She served for both sets and had four set points in the second only to let Tomljanovic, who had never played on this court in the biggest stadium in the sport, climb out of a 5-3 hole in the first and second sets. She matched Williams’s power and edged her in both steeliness and accuracy, and also faced down a crowd that was entirely in Williams’s favor.“I just thought she would beat me,” Tomljanovic said. “She’s the greatest of all time, period.”Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesWilliams’s loss came on the same court where she won her first major title in 1999 at the age of 17. The fans this week came to Ashe to say goodbye, but with each match it was clear that no one wanted to see Williams go, not from the tournament she has won six times and not from tennis. Just 24 hours before Friday’s match, Williams had lost a doubles match with her sister Venus Williams. And as play moved into a third set on Friday, Serena Williams struggled to catch her breath and keep up with the pace of the match.Her play this week though could make people wonder if she was really ready to quit. Through three matches and eight sets of tennis over five days that few will soon forget, Williams proved that she could still be great on a tennis court. However, she has said that she wants to have a second child and cannot do so while traveling the world and competing.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open was very likely the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Glorious Goodbye: Even as Serena Williams faced career point, she put on a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.The Magic Ends: Zoom into this composite photo to see details of Williams’s final moment on Ashe Stadium at this U.S. Open.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Court: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to each other’s.She could always choose to return to tennis. But in an essay published in Vogue magazine last month, Williams wrote that she was “evolving away from tennis” — effectively announcing that she planned to retire. And in speaking to reporters after matches at the Open, she has not altered the plan.Williams has played infrequently since injuring her hamstring at Wimbledon in 2021. She lost in the first round at Wimbledon in June, and after her announcement in August that she would be playing her final few tournaments, a fortuitous run at the U.S. Open looked unlikely. In three matches in Toronto and Cincinnati knee tendinitis kept her from moving well. Williams, though, kept working, focusing on improving her lateral movement, and trying to regain her feel for the ball and the timing that allowed her to play with unmatched ferocity during a career spanning parts of four decades.Williams had a golden opportunity to take the first set after breaking Tomljanovic for a 5-3 lead. But she failed to close it out and coming up short appeared to rattle her. She committed a series of errors, hitting balls long and into the net as Tomljanovic pounced on her opportunity and finished off the set with a forehand cross-court winner that Williams barely moved for.It was a stunning end to a set that during the first eight games saw Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam champion, repeatedly send the big-hitting Australian backpedaling on so many points, moving her across the baseline and riding the energy of the crowd to gain the early edge.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesFor the first half-hour the match looked destined to follow the pattern of her first two, with Williams mostly getting better with each set. But two errors on one of her signature shots — her swinging forehand volley — and a serve that became unreliable and wobbly did her in. After 49 minutes, she was in a hole.Few players react to a deficit the way Williams does. When she is healthy and in form, Williams takes losing a set almost as an insult, an attack on an aura of invincibility that she will stop at almost nothing to maintain.And that is exactly what she did Friday night. Her grunts grew louder, her serves harder and more precise. She dove across the pavement for one volley, and stabbed and thumped others. She surged to a 4-0 lead, then stumbled briefly but regained her form in time to get to the brink of drawing even. She held four set points at 5-2, and served for the set once more at 5-3, but could not make the shots she needed to when she needed them most. Somehow, though, Williams came alive in the tiebreaker, pushing into the court and layering her shots so close to the lines and clinching it with a stiff backhand return of Tomljanovic’s serve that the Australian could not get back.The New York crowd, which has not always been in her corner, especially during some of her ugly run-ins with officials at this tournament, now smothered her with every ounce of sound it could muster, making the match as hard for Tomljanovic as it could.“So much support, so much love,” Williams would say later. “The whole crowd was really wanting to push me past the line. I’m so thankful and grateful for that.”Onto the third set they went. Once more Williams took an early lead, breaking Tomljanovic’s serve in the first game but then frittering away her advantage as her 40-year-old gas tank edged toward empty.Tomljanovic reeled off six straight games. In the last one, Williams ripped a ferocious forehand winner and unleashed a throat-busting scream, sending the stadium into a frenzy once more. And once more, Tomljanovic let the noise fall over her and set herself to the task at hand. It would take her six match points to induce that last error from Williams, and then with one final stroke into the net it was done.Speaking to the crowd through tears, Williams said her tennis career had been the ride of a lifetime.Karsten Moran for The New York Times“It all started with my parents, and they deserve everything. I’m really grateful to them,” she said. “These are happy tears.”She gave a nod to her sister: “I wouldn’t be Serena if there wasn’t Venus,” she said.She has said she planned to focus on growing her family and working with her venture capital firm. But as she played three rounds of tennis that conjured so many moments of the Serena Williams of old, even she had struggled before Friday night to say firmly that tennis was gone for good. Then she nearly did.“Clearly I’m still capable,” she said. “It takes a lot more than that. I’m ready to, like, be a mom, explore a different version of Serena.” More

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      At the U.S. Open, Coco Gauff Is Playing With a Veteran’s Confidence

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      On Thursday, Coco Gauff saw a photo memory from five years ago. It had the caption “courtside seats” at Arthur Ashe Stadium as she had watched one of her idols, Venus Williams, play.“I was trying to flex to my friends that I had courtside seats, and now I’m on the court,” Gauff said while laughing in a post-match interview.A day after that five-year anniversary, the No. 12 seed Gauff handily defeated the 20th seed, Madison Keys, 6-2, 6-3, and warmed up the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium for the second time this week for her other idol, Serena Williams, who was scheduled to play at 7 p.m. The win avenged a loss that Gauff had against Keys in Adelaide, Australia, in January.“I just told myself I’m going to go down swinging,” Gauff said. “The last time, I think I got a little bit passive, so she just overpowered me, and today I was like, I’m not going to let that happen.”Serena Williams and Gauff are in the bottom half of the single’s draw. Gauff has been watching Williams’s matches closely, not only because she is one of Gauff’s favorite players and biggest inspirations, but also because she is hoping to face her.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Strong Showing: As her successes on the field prove, Serena Williams did not come to New York to receive a ceremonial send-off, but to put her best on the line against the world’s finest players.Tournament Prep: Analytics, scouting first-time opponents, additional coaching input, new footwork drills and treating doubles like practice — so far it’s adding up to winning.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Field: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to one another.“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine,” Gauff said.Gauff will take on Shuai Zhang, who is ranked 36th in women’s singles and defeated Rebecca Marino on Friday, in the fourth round.The fourth round is the furthest Gauff has reached in singles at the U.S. Open. Three years ago, Gauff, then 15, left the court in tears as she was overpowered by Naomi Osaka, then the world No. 1, in the third round. Fighting through tears in the post-match interview that Osaka suggested she do, Gauff then said she would learn from the loss.Gauff will play Shuai Zhang in the round of 16 on Sunday.Cj Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockSince then, she’s lost in the first and second rounds at the Open, but on Friday her evolution on the court showed. Gauff, now 18, looked like a confident veteran, wearing her blue, pink and light green “Coco CG1” signature shoe and responding to everything Keys threw her way.“I was really delusional then,” Gauff said of that 2019 match with Osaka. “It was my first U.S. Open, and I thought I was going to go out flying colors. And, yeah, I didn’t.” She added: “I’m definitely happy that people expected things of me, but I think it’s more focused on my expectations of myself than other people’s.”After Keys won the opening game of the first set, Gauff won six of the next seven to take the set. The victory did not come as easily as the game differential would indicate, though, as Keys forced Gauff to sprint across the court and hit shots from strenuous angles.In the second game, both struggled to secure a win, constantly going from an advantage back to deuce. As Keys forced Gauff to run seemingly everywhere on the court with powerful shots and with Gauff holding the advantage, it seemed as though the game were heading back to deuce. But Gauff connected on a forehand close to the net that landed just behind Keys to take the game and let out an emphatic scream as the crowd roared with her.Gauff, one of the most popular players in tennis, has had a significant crowd advantage through her first two matches, receiving a stadium’s worth of roars when she wins and sighs of disappointment when her opponent gets the best of her. Friday was slightly different as the crowd consistently celebrated Keys, a fellow American. It was a luxury Gauff’s other opponents didn’t enjoy. Three siblings sitting next to each other close to the court seemed to be having a match of their own as one screamed, “Go Madison!” as loudly as possible while another yelled, “Go, Coco!”The cheers for Keys faded, though, as she launched a ball and let out a frustrated scream while the crowd clapped for Gauff. Then, she bounced back, and so did the crowd roars, winning that game and the next to bring the total to 4-3 in the second set. But Keys’s run ended there, and Gauff dominated the remainder of the set to win the match.Gauff and Zhang have faced each other once in singles. Gauff won, 7-6 (1), 7-5, at the Miami Open in March. Last year, they played each other in doubles as Zhang and Samantha Stosur won the U.S. Open women’s doubles title over Gauff and Caty McNally.Zhang, 33, remembers Gauff’s talent from the match in Miami and how “cute” Gauff’s younger brother was cheering in the stands. She said it was hard for her to picture Gauff, who reached the French Open final earlier this year, which she lost to Iga Swiatek, as an 18-year-old because she remembers her as the “14, 15-year-old” who was beginning to play professionally. And because it makes her feel old, she added.Like Zhang, Gauff’s first thought about her fourth-round opponent didn’t have much to do with tennis. Zhang is one of the most liked people on tour, Gauff said. She remembers how Zhang congratulated her when Gauff became the No. 1 doubles player, despite her overtaking Zhang, whose career-high doubles ranking is No. 2.“She’s such a tough competitor on the court, but also, as soon as it’s over, she has so much respect for everyone,” Gauff said. “So, I’m just happy that tennis has someone like her in the sport.” More

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      Serena Williams Match Brings Russell Wilson, Ciara and Others to US Open

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      Serena Williams continues to attract celebrities and politicians to her U.S. Open matches. In attendance Friday:the N.F.L. quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife, the singer Ciara; the rapper Pusha T; the actress Heidi Gardner; and the former Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia. Williams is facing Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia.Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue magazine, was spotted for the fourth time this week in Williams’s player box. (Wintour was also present for Williams’s doubles match with her sister Venus Williams on Thursday evening; the sisters lost in straight sets.) Serena Williams has described Wintour as a longtime friend, and it was in Vogue that Williams announced she would be “evolving away from tennis.”Wintour wasn’t the only big name who has felt a magnetic pull to Arthur Ashe Stadium all week. Both the designer Vera Wang and the filmmaker Spike Lee were back in the stands on Friday night, too.Other celebrities who have come out to show their support this week include Tiger Woods; the singers Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight and Seal; the actors Anthony Anderson, Zendaya, La La Anthony and Rebel Wilson; the models Bella and Gigi Hadid; the Jeopardy winner Amy Schneider; the former N.B.A. players Jason Collins and Steve Nash; and the comedian Chelsea Handler.Williams has refrained from being overtly political during her career, most recently deciding against commenting on the overturn of Roe V. Wade, but a number of politicians have been spotted at her matches, including former President Bill Clinton, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams. More

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      Serena Williams Prepared a Little Differently for This U.S. Open

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      Analytics, scouting first-time opponents, additional coaching input, new footwork drills and treating doubles like practice — so far it’s adding up to winning.Follow live as Serena Williams plays Ajla Tomljanovic at the U.S. Open.An underdog with the oddsmakers against the No. 2 seed, Anett Kontaveit, on Wednesday, Serena Williams will be back on familiar ground as the favorite against the unseeded Ajla Tomljanovic on Friday.The word is out, expedited by the roars in Arthur Ashe Stadium: Williams has worked her way with great speed back into form and into the third round of her final U.S. Open.It is remarkable but not necessarily astonishing, even a few weeks from her turning 41.“We can all ride a bike at an older age, and once the jitters are gone, you can even ride a bike without holding the handlebars,” said Sven Groeneveld, the leading coach who works with Bianca Andreescu and long coached Maria Sharapova.“It’s like walking for Serena,” Groeneveld said. “She has played tennis 90 percent of her life.”Williams has no shortage of positive memories to draw on from her younger years of pulling out of tailspins in a hurry.In 2007, she came into the Australian Open unseeded and ranked 81st, having played just five tournaments in the previous year and losing early in her lone warm-up event.But she soon locked in, defeating six seeded players, including the top-ranked Sharapova in the final.In 2012, Williams was beaten in the first round of the French Open by Virginie Razzano, a Frenchwoman ranked 111th. It was Williams’s earliest defeat to date in a major tournament, and it left her reeling and unusually open to change.She brought on a new coaching consultant, Patrick Mouratoglou, and though she played no tuneup events before arriving at Wimbledon, she quickly worked her way into devastating form. She won the title and then played what is widely considered the best tennis of her career to win the Olympic gold medal in singles and also in doubles with her sister Venus at the London Games on the same grass courts of the All England Club.That was, beyond doubt, a no-handlebars moment, but she is coming from even further back this time: playing no competitive tennis for nearly a year, arriving at the U.S. Open having won just one of four singles matches this season and ranked, strange but true, No. 605.“I just think because Serena is Serena and is a great athlete, that the more practice and the more practice matches she gets, she can play her way into an event,” said Kathy Rinaldi, the United States King Cup captain. “You’ve seen her do it in the past, and if you watched the match against Kontaveit, her movement to me got better and better by the third set, and I just think a great athlete can do that.”Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open was very likely the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Glorious Goodbye: Even as Serena Williams faced career point, she put on a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.The Magic Ends: Zoom into this composite photo to see details of Williams’s final moment on Ashe Stadium at this U.S. Open.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Court: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to each other’s.Some fitness coaches for other players were still shaking their heads on Thursday at their mind’s-eye images of Williams’s struggling to cover court at the National Bank Open in Toronto and the Western and Southern Open in Mason, Ohio: tournaments in which she lost last month in early rounds.“The change in a month is incredible,” said Maciej Ryszczuk, the fitness coach of the world No. 1, Iga Swiatek.But Williams said she felt her level in practice was often quite high as she returned to the tour, but that this was not carrying over into matches. The exception was the Western and Southern Open, where she was dealing with what several people had said was a flare-up of knee tendinitis: something that neither she nor her staff has confirmed.Williams during her first-round loss at the Western and Southern Open in August.Jeff Dean/Associated PressBut Eric Hechtman, Williams’s new coach, said the platform for the success so far in New York was in place.“The shotmaking was there, and the serve was there,” he said in an interview after her victory over Kontaveit. “She was actually moving well in practice, so in New York, we added in some more side-to-side running drills, and I think that’s helped.”So have the sellout crowds of nearly 24,000 in Ashe Stadium that are entirely in Williams’s corner.“That stadium is so big, and once you pack it in like that with a bunch of fired-up people, it’s a game changer,” Hechtman said. “It takes a little bit of time to get some rhythm, but it’s starting to come together. It was a great win against Kontaveit, but it’s still just the second round. None of us are getting carried away.”A loss against Tomljanovic would actually bring Williams full circle. She also lost in the third round in her first U.S. Open singles appearance in 1998 and has never failed to go farther in her 19 appearances since then: winning six titles.But the expectations are different this year. Given her recent level of play, the third round feels like an achievement. But the challenge as Williams goes deeper in the tournament will be to manage the load that comes with stacking up singles matches and doubles matches. She played doubles with her sister Venus at a tournament for the first time in more than four years, losing in the first round Thursday to Lucie Hradecka and Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic, 7-6 (5), 6-4.Unlike regular tour events, the Grand Slam tournaments allow a day of rest for women’s singles players between each round of singles, with occasional exceptions. Unlike the men, who play best-of-five-set matches, the women play best-of-three-set matches.But playing doubles on what would normally be a recovery day could still create a greater risk for the 40-year-old Williams. The last time she and Venus played doubles in a major — at the 2018 French Open — Williams withdrew from singles before the fourth round with a pectoral injury aggravated during a doubles match.Venus and Serena Williams last played doubles together at the 2018 French Open.Christophe Simon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMouratoglou, who had counseled against playing both events because Williams was returning from a long layoff, was displeased, and Williams had not played singles and doubles with her sister at a major again until now.But in what is most likely Williams’s final tournament, this sounds like a heart-over-head decision.“I feel like it’s been very important for her to be a part of this,” Williams had said of Venus. “She’s my rock. I’m super excited to play with her and just do that again. It’s been a long time.”Hechtman, who also coaches Venus Williams, said he fully supported the decision. “I think it’s great she’s playing doubles,” he said of Serena. “It’s not just the doubles, it’s the fact you get the reps on serves and return and play points and play with the crowd again.”Hechtman had not pushed for Serena to play doubles in her warm-up events.“This is a different situation,” he said. “It’s her last tournament. It’s a Grand Slam and you have the day off in between singles matches, and normally you practice on that day, so instead you are playing doubles. I talked to her a little bit about it in Cincy, and it was like, ‘You know what? This totally makes sense.’”What also made sense to Hechtman was the decision to play tournaments in singles heading into the U.S. Open, which Williams did not do before Wimbledon, where she lost in the first round to Harmony Tan, an unseeded Frenchwoman.“I personally thought we were very ready for Wimbledon,” he said. “The only thing we didn’t have was those matches. Even if she was a little banged-up in Cincy, I think those tournaments were crucial to getting to the level she’s hit here. You can’t say definitively they made the difference, but I would say they were very important.”Scouting and preparation have also been important in New York. She had not faced Danka Kovinic, her first-round opponent, or Kontaveit and has not played Tomljanovic either. Hechtman said he and Williams had been getting input on opponents from the United States Tennis Association’s analytics team, working closely with Rinaldi and David Ramos, a director for performance analytics.“It helps us see clearly how Serena’s strengths match up against opponents’ weaknesses, and we go from there,” Hechtman said.Hechtman said he also welcomed the arrival of Rennae Stubbs, an ESPN analyst, coach and former No. 1 doubles player, who has been providing counsel in New York.“They’ve been friends for a long time, and the more positive people — this is a very emotional state — the better it is,” he said. “I’m all for it. Look, I’m here to win so anything that’s going to help us get over that mountaintop.” More

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      Wu Yibing’s US Open Run Could Influence Tennis in China

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      Wu Yibing became the first Chinese man to reach the third round of a Grand Slam since 1946. He says it’s his “responsibility” to pick up where the retired champion Li Na left off in growing the game.Follow live as Serena Williams plays Ajla Tomljanovic at the U.S. Open.Shortly after Wu Yibing made tennis history on Wednesday by becoming the first Chinese man to reach the third round of the U.S. Open, a tournament that dates to 1881, he was informed that his name was on fire on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat.Fans and admirers in China were spreading the word that Wu, a past U.S. Open junior champion, had just beaten Nuno Borges of Portugal in a tough five-set match that lasted nearly four hours. Not only was Wu the first Chinese man to advance into the third round at the U.S. Open, he became the first to reach the third round of a Grand Slam event since Kho Sin-Khie, an Indonesian-born player who competed under the Chinese flag, did it at Wimbledon in 1946.As a groundbreaking player with aspirations to elevate men’s tennis in China, just as the retired two-time major champion Li Na did for Chinese women, Wu, 22, was asked what that kind of social media attention back home meant to him.“That I’m a good-looking guy,” he quipped, eliciting uproarious laughter from reporters at a late-night news conference.That may be true, but Wu has other talents that could help make him one of the most influential players in the game. Primarily, he is very good at tennis, with a complete arsenal of shots and the court savvy to squeeze the best out of his ability. And his answer to that question illustrated he has an engaging personality that could also help draw others into his orbit.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open was very likely the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Glorious Goodbye: Even as Serena Williams faced career point, she put on a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.The Magic Ends: Zoom into this composite photo to see details of Williams’s final moment on Ashe Stadium at this U.S. Open.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Court: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to each other’s.“He is very outgoing and loves to joke around,” said Gerardo Azcurra, his coach. “He is not afraid to talk.”Wu, playing a shot in Monday’s first round at the U.S. Open, trained at the I.M.G. Academy in Florida.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesBut as much as Wu enjoys kidding around, he also understands his place in the game. He knows he is in a position to influence the way an entire sport is perceived by millions of people in China, and how fast it can grow. Along with his friends Zhang Zhizhen, 25, and the 17-year-old rising star Shang Juncheng, he is part of the core of China’s emerging men’s tennis hopes to not only to play well on tour, but to develop the game back home.“I have the responsibility to do it, and with my ability, it will always be part of my career,” Wu said. “I think it can really help kids to love tennis, to pay attention to the sport. Before Li Na, we did not have many tennis facilities in China. But then it got more popular and hopefully I can bring even more tennis to China.”Wu began playing as a young boy in Hangzhou, China. His father, Wu Kang, was an amateur boxer and felt his son needed to get more physically fit. Wu initially tried badminton, but the net was too high and he could not get the shuttlecock over it. So, he settled on tennis, where the nets are lower and the aspirations higher.Within a few years, Wu was winning local tournaments and then regional ones. By the time he was 16, he was competing internationally.He first drew the attention of broad swathes of Chinese tennis fans when he won the U.S. Open junior tournament in 2017, in both singles and doubles. It was a breakthrough that earned him an invitation to train at the I.M.G. Academy in Bradenton, Fla., to work on his game and learn English — which he did extremely well. It was also where he first met Azcurra.Azcurra left I.M.G. three years ago to coach privately, and Wu asked in January if they could reunite. Wu moved into Azcurra’s house in Bradenton and they have formed a productive relationship, with Wu winning four lower-level tournaments this year.“He has had some little injuries, some illness,” Azcurra said, “but every time he comes back stronger. He injured his ankle, came back and won a Futures tournament. He got sick, but came back and won a Challenger.”Wu, Zhang Zhizhen, pictured, and the 17-year-old rising star Shang Juncheng are part of the core of China’s emerging men’s tennis hopes.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersOn Friday, the stakes will grow exponentially when Wu plays Daniil Medvedev of Russia, the No. 1 seed and defending champion, in Arthur Ashe Stadium. It will be the biggest match that Wu, ranked No. 174, has ever played. In a dizzying few months with Azcurra, he has gone from the outskirts of the tennis tour to its largest stadium.In April, Wu was ranked 1,738th and playing in Orange Park, Fla. In July he was playing a Challenger event (a minor league tournament) in Rome, Ga. But he did well enough to earn a chance to qualify for the U.S. Open, which he did, and now he will face the top player in the world under the lights in Ashe.Wu shrugged when asked how daunting the challenge will be against Medvedev.“All tennis players watch his matches, we know how good he is,” Wu said during an interview Thursday afternoon. “I respect him, but when we are on the court, we are opponents competing against each other. None of the rankings matter. I want to show that I’m not scared or whatever. It’s just a match.”Presumably, many people in China will be paying attention to how Wu fares, both on the court and on social media. He has a Weibo account, but Li Xi, his agent, jokes that he has only about 150,000 followers, a relatively small number in a country as populous as China.“You need to post more,” she said with a laugh.“That’s not my job,” he responded.His job is to play tennis, win matches and give the occasional interview. So, when a reporter asked if there was anything else he would like to add, Wu smiled.“That’s enough,” he said. “I’ve already given you a lot of information.” More

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      All Eyes Are on Serena, but What Are Venus’s Plans?

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      Since Serena Williams announced in August that she plans to retire after this year’s U.S. Open, all eyes have been on her and what has turned into her farewell tour. But what’s next for Venus Williams is unclear.Venus Williams, who at 42 is about 15 months older than Serena Williams, has been vague about her plans for her future. Before this year’s U.S. Open, which she was able to enter after receiving wild cards for both the singles and the doubles draw, it had been some time since Venus Williams had played in a Grand Slam.After losing in the second round of Wimbledon to Ons Jabeur of Tunisia last year, Williams played one match in the WTA’s Chicago Women’s Open in August 2021, losing in the first round, and then left tennis for nearly a year.She returned to the sport last month, and struggled in three tournaments, losing in the first rounds of the Citi Open in Washington, the National Bank Open in Toronto, and the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio.“It was definitely the longest time I have been away from tennis and been without a racket in my hand,” she said after she lost to Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium in straight sets in the first round of the singles draw on Tuesday. “It was a completely new experience for me, getting a racket back in my hand and trying to acclimate as quick as possible to be ready for the U.S. Open, which was not easy.”Williams last played in a Grand Slam final at the Australian Open in 2017, where she lost to her sister, and last won a Grand Slam title in 2008 at Wimbledon, where she beat her sister. Her time away from tennis and the winner’s stage has left Williams ranked at No. 1,504 in the world. In 2002, she was ranked No. 1 in singles. Her low ranking means that to continue to play in tournaments, Williams will need to rely heavily on wild cards.At her postmatch news conference on Tuesday, Williams was asked about whether she also had any plans to retire like her sister.“Right now I’m just focused on the doubles,” she said.When the Williams sisters walked off the court in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday night after losing their first-round doubles match to Lucie Hradecka and Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic, it could have been the last time the sisters left a court together. Or was it?The sisters did not have a postmatch news conference, but when asked on Tuesday what keeps her motivated, Williams was short and quick to reply.“Three letters is W-I-N,” she said. “That’s it. Very simple.”Since Serena Williams announced in a Vogue cover story that she planned to evolve “away from tennis, toward other things that are important,” she has sprinkled some uncertainty about her own retirement plans.“I’ve been pretty vague about it, right?” Serena Williams said, smiling after her first-round win against Danka Kovinic. “I’m going to stay vague because you never know.” More

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      Venus and Serena William Lose First Round Doubles Match at US Open

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      What was supposed to be a prime time, packed-house celebration of the Williams sisters at the U.S. Open turned into something rather less festive than planned on Thursday night.The rain cloud was the Czech doubles team of Lucie Hradecka and Linda Noskova, who unlike Venus and Serena Williams have not won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles together.In fact the 37-year-old Hradecka and the 17-year-old Noskova had never played a pro tournament together before until walking out into the cavernous confines of Arthur Ashe Stadium for their first-round match against Team Williams.But experience did not prove decisive as the Czechs, who clicked quickly, prevailed in a tight first set and then closed out their 7-6 (5), 6-4 victory and likely put a downbeat end to the Williamses’ phenomenal career as a team at this level.Exhibition tours and even comebacks may await, but this certainly felt like the end of an era for one of the greatest doubles teams in the game’s history. It came quickly after the Williamses had succeeded in rallying from a 1-4 deficit in the second set to get back to 4-4. And it came in an atmosphere that was comparatively subdued despite the sellout crowd of nearly 24,000: quite a contrast with the rock festival atmosphere at Serena Williams’s night singles matches in this year’s tournament as she has made a stirring run to the third round in her farewell U.S. Open.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.A Magical Run: As her successes on the field prove, Serena Williams did not come to New York to receive a ceremonial send-off, but to put her best on the line against the world’s finest players.In the Player’s Box: Fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium have been catching glimpses of her family and entourage. Here is a look at who has been in attendance to support her.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Field: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to one another.But though Serena Williams was often effective and decisive on Thursday night, she could not hold serve to keep the sisters in the match at 4-5. At 15-40, Hradecka poached and knocked away a backhand volley winner to close out the victory, and the sisters were soon packing up in a hurry and exiting the court without an on-court interview (or signing autographs despite all the souvenir balls being extended in their direction as they headed for the tunnel).Lucie Hradecka and Linda Noskova had never played together in a pro tournament before but managed to win.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe Czechs ended up with the floor and the interview with ESPN analyst Mary Joe Fernandez.“I’m still in shock that we won because played the first time with each other,” Hradecka said, addressing the crowd, which seemed rather stunned as well. “I think we did a very good job, and I’m so sorry for you that we beat them, but we are so happy we did it.”Though the evening did not deliver the anticipated enchantment (unless you were Czech), it was not entirely bereft of pomp and circumstance. Before the sisters took the court, a video tribute was played on the big screens inside the stadium, showing footage of them through the decades. But there was no post-match ceremony planned, win or lose, and the sisters did not look much in the mood for public speaking after their straight-sets defeat and even declined to give a news conference, which has not been unusual for them in 2022.If this was indeed the last time the fabulous Williams sisters share the same court in an official match, it was surely not the way they, or just about anybody else, envisaged it. Their careers have been so routinely cinematic, full of surprise twists and revivals, that a straightforward opening-round defeat seems out of place in the story arc.But pro tennis is a sport, not scripted drama, and the anticlimax takes nothing away from their collective achievements. The Williams sisters were quality over quantity. They rarely played together on tour, restricting most of their appearances to the majors and the Olympics. But their strike rate was phenomenal, particularly when they reached a championship match.They were 14-0 in Grand Slam women’s doubles finals and 3-0 in Olympic gold-medal matches together. That is a statistic that will be noted (and tweeted) for years to come, and though it was a downer of a finish, it was still a fitting, full-circle place to finish.The Williamses played in Ashe Stadium the year that it opened in 1997, with Venus reaching the singles final as an unseeded 17-year-old and 15-year-old Serena making her Grand Slam debut in doubles with Venus. They had white beads in their hair and braces on their teeth, and though they were dynamic and exuberant, they were beaten in the first round by Jill Hetherington and Kathy Rinaldi, who would later coach both sisters as the captain for the United States’ team in the Billie Jean King Cup.There was a video tribute played on the stadium big screens before the match, but no post-match ceremony.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times“They’re both such different personalities but they’re both just such tremendous champions,” said Rinaldi, who was back in Ashe Stadium on Thursday night.The sisters went on to win two U.S. Open titles together but had not played together at a major since the 2018 French Open. But at Serena’s request, they put the band back together in New York. Serena, who turns 41 this month, has announced her intention to “evolve away” from tennis sometime after the U.S. Open, while Venus, 42, has remained cryptic about her own retirement and evolutionary plans.“I can’t speak for Venus or what exactly her plans are,” said Eric Hechtman, who coaches both Williams sisters. “But you know they are both strong women and both doing it their way. Serena, with the Vogue article, did it on her terms and in her fashion, and whenever Venus decides she’s not going to play tennis anymore, she’ll do it her way. People might say in their minds she got lost in the shuffle here, but whatever way she does it is the way she wants to do it. They are different people with different objectives, both staying true to who they are.”The U.S. Open organizers did not hesitate to capitalize on the moment, opening a night session with a doubles match for the first time since Sept. 3, 2012, when the Williams sisters faced Nadia Petrova and Maria Kirilenko in a third-round match.Perhaps it was foreshadowing that the sisters lost that one in straight sets, too, and with Venus’s elimination in the first round of singles, there is only one Williams left in this U.S. Open. Serena will be back on Ashe Stadium for a night session on Friday night to face the unseeded Australian Ajla Tomljanovic, who joked that she was planning on bringing earplugs to block out the roars.No such measures would have been necessary on Thursday. Rarely have so many U.S. Open fans been so quiet after sundown. More