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      Is Serena Williams the GOAT? Probably. Maybe. Without a Doubt.

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      Follow live as Serena Williams plays Danka Kovinic at the U.S. Open.In the stands this month at the Western & Southern Open in Ohio there seemed to be no debate.There were shouts of “GOAT!” in Serena Williams’s direction and banners that read “GOAT” in her honor.In February, Williams appeared to be in a similarly conclusive frame of mind during Milan Fashion Week when she wore a black sweatshirt with “GOAT” in large white letters: a product of her own fashion line.With her retirement now imminent, it is certainly time to celebrate her long and phenomenal career, one of the most extraordinary from start to near-finish of any athlete.A successful Black woman in a predominantly white sport, she has beaten the odds, and talented opponents from multiple generations, across four decades. She has swatted aces and baseline winners, hustled for drop shots, lunged for returns and scrapped back from adversity on and off the court with the sort of sustained tenacity and triumph that only transcendent champions can muster.As she bids farewell, emotions are rightly running high, yet to unreservedly proclaim her the GOAT (greatest of all time) in women’s tennis is not as straightforward as a short overhead into an open court.Serena Williams in 2017 winning her seventh Australian Open title after defeating her sister Venus. She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles.Mark R. Cristino/European Pressphoto AgencyGreat will mean different things to different people. Performance is part of it but surely not all of it, and it seems fitting that the first athlete to embrace the GOAT acronym was Muhammad Ali, who billed himself understandably as “the Greatest” and managed some of his business interests through a company named G.O.A.T. Inc. Ali was no doubt a fabulous boxer but also a deeply symbolic figure.GOAT arguments are passionate and often unresolvable no matter what the sport. In the case of Williams, larger than life herself, it deserves to be a debate, not a processional.Though they are likely to be inconclusive, there are legitimate reasons to lean toward one of Williams’s predecessors, in particular Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graf, if you don’t want to travel through the mists of time to Margaret Court, who achieved the Grand Slam in 1970 and was the best player of her era.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Decades of Greatness: Over 27 years, Serena Williams dominated generation after generation of opponents and changed the way women’s tennis is played, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and cementing her reputation as the queen of comebacks.Is She the GOAT?: Proclaiming Williams the greatest women’s tennis player of all time is not a straightforward debate, our columnist writes.An Enduring Influence: From former and current players’ memories of a young Williams to the new fans she drew to tennis, Williams left a lasting impression.Her Fashion: Since she turned professional in 1995, Williams has used her clothes as a statement of self and a weapon of change.Tennis history is long for a modern sport: Wimbledon dates to 1877 and the U.S. Championships to 1881. The game and equipment have improved drastically (Navratilova and her friendly rival Chris Evert once played with wooden rackets), and the measures of success have shifted, too.“It’s really difficult to compare one generation to another,” Williams once said. “Things change — power, technique, technology.”While there are still formidable obstacles to fair comparisons, and though Williams’s 23 Grand Slam singles titles, an Open-era record and her signature achievement, loom like Mount Rushmore, the title count was not the coin of the realm in earlier eras.“Nowadays, the Grand Slams are much more revered than they were in my time,” Navratilova said.Achieving a Grand Slam, by winning all four majors in the same calendar year, was a clear goal after Don Budge became the first to do it in 1938, but a player’s total number of Grand Slam singles titles was not always a major talking point.“We really weren’t concerned with the number,” Rod Laver, the red-haired Australian who completed Grand Slams twice in singles, in 1962 and 1969, once told me. “I’m not sure I even knew exactly how many I had.” (He had 11 Grand Slam singles titles.)Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships, now the U.S. Open, have had cachet nearly from the start, but the prestige of the other two Grand Slam tournaments, the Australian Open and the French Open, has fluctuated greatly. International stars regularly skipped them until the 1990s, dissuaded by distance and Christmas-season dates that came with the Australian Open and by more lucrative and sometimes binding commitments.Players have always had to miss major tournaments because of injury, but champions like Billie Jean King, Navratilova and Evert missed quite a few by choice. So did Court, who retired early, only to reconsider, and later had two pregnancies that interrupted her career.Margaret Court in the second round of the U.S. Open Championships in 1970.Associated PressCourt, an imposing net rusher from Australia who dominated her rivalry with King, finished with 24 Grand Slam singles titles and 64 Grand Slam titles overall. Both are records. And though 11 of Court’s major singles titles came in Australia when it had smaller draws and often weaker fields than other majors, 24 is still the number that Williams has been chasing openly and unsuccessfully since taking her own maternity leave in 2017.Graf, the only player to have won all four majors at least four times, finished with 22 Grand Slam singles titles despite playing about a decade less than Williams. Evert and Navratilova finished with 18 apiece and would surely have won more if they had committed to all the majors like Williams and other contemporary stars.Evert and Navratilova also had a still-fledgling tour to carry, which meant a busier schedule than today’s biggest stars.“There was definitely more of a commitment from the WTA standpoint because it was early on and we really had to prove ourselves,” Evert said.Williams has blown hot and cold on the tour, sometimes skipping its bigger events, including the year-end tour championships.That lighter schedule probably extended her career but also helps explain why Williams ranks third in total weeks at No. 1 with 319. Graf leads with 377; Navratilova is next with 332. Though Williams finished as year-end No. 1 on five occasions — another significant measure of success — Navratilova did it seven times and Graf a record eight times.There is also a big disparity in tour singles titles. Williams’s total of 73 puts her fifth on the Open-era career list, far behind Navratilova, who won 167 singles titles and 177 doubles titles in a period when doubles had more cachet than it does now. Navratilova also had a long period of genuine dominance, losing just 14 singles matches in five years from 1984 to 1988. Evert, also a consistent threat, won 157 singles titles; Graf won 107 even though she retired at age 30.Two other points in Graf’s favor: She had a career winning percentage in singles of 89 percent, the best of the modern GOAT contenders (Williams’s is at 85 percent). Graf is also the only player, male or female, to complete the so-called Golden Slam, winning all four majors and the Olympic singles title in 1988.Navratilova and Williams both had great runs in majors: Navratilova won six straight in 1983 and 1984; Williams twice won four in a row, the so-called Serena Slams, from 2002 to 2003 and from 2014 to 2015. But neither Navratilova nor Williams could cope with the heavy pressure that came with finishing off the true Grand Slam, falling two matches short.Williams was stunned in the semifinals of the 2015 U.S. Open by Roberta Vinci, an unseeded Italian whose sliced backhand caused Williams big trouble, but not as much trouble as Williams’s nerves.“She lost to the Grand Slam more than anything else,” Navratilova said that night, speaking from experience.Martina Navratilova, left, and Chris Evert, right, posing for a photo with Serena Williams after she won the 2014 U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York.Mike Segar/ReutersWhat bears remembering is that Williams was 33, retirement age for many a previous champion, and yet she was seemingly still peaking: a tribute to her talent, competitive drive and work with Patrick Mouratoglou, an ambitious Frenchman who became her first formal coach on tour other than her parents, Richard and Oracene.With Mouratoglou, she chose a racket with a larger head and changed strings to add more spin and develop more margin for error and a more effective Plan B.They also emphasized competing more often week to week to make her sharper at the majors.Her results and confidence soared. With Mouratoglou, she went on to win 10 more Grand Slam singles titles, all in her 30s. That had no precedent in women’s tennis, and it is one of the strongest arguments for bestowing GOAT status on Williams. She and her older sister Venus changed the game and raised the bar for the opposition, many of whom could not keep up, fading or retiring while the Williamses continued.Serena Williams was not consistently dominant: She had more dips in form and barren patches than Navratilova, Graf and Evert, and even dropped out of the top 100 in 2006. Arguably, she also lacked a transcendent rivalry, dominating Venus, 7-2, in major finals and playing her in only one final at any level after 2009. Though they had some memorable duels, the rivalry between the sisters was, particularly early on, sometimes as uncomfortable for the viewers as for the siblings.“Martina had Chrissie; Steffi had Martina and Monica Seles; Court had Billie Jean and Maria Bueno,” said Steve Flink, an American tennis historian and author.“During Serena’s great years in her 30s, she had no formidable rival to test her to the hilt; that is not her fault but a factor,” Flink added, of the GOAT debate. But Williams, despite her dips, did rule over the best talent available, compiling a 176-72 record against players who have been ranked No. 1. She went 20-2 against her tennis muse Maria Sharapova, a blond Russian who out-earned her in sponsorships for years, which Williams understandably viewed as an injustice in light of her superior résumé.Williams would agree that she knew how to channel a grudge.In her essay in Vogue this month announcing her imminent retirement, she wrote: “There were so many matches I won because something made me angry or someone counted me out. That drove me.”Serena Williams playing Naomi Osaka in the women singles finals of the U.S. Open in 2018.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesWilliams endured and excelled, reaching four Grand Slam singles finals after returning from pregnancy in 2018 despite some in her close circle counseling against a comeback at age 36.Matching or breaking Court’s record, however flawed, at that late stage might have truly ended the GOAT debate. But Williams has still moved many as a working mother and as a superstar willing to put herself back on the line past her prime.Williams, unlike Navratilova, one of the first openly gay superstar athletes, has not been a political crusader. She has declined, most recently, to comment on Roe v. Wade being overturned. Her approach has been shaped perhaps by her faith (she is a Jehovah’s Witness) and perhaps because of the risk athletes from earlier generations ran with sponsors for straying outside the lines (“Republicans buy sneakers, too,” Michael Jordan once said).But Williams’s 14-year boycott of the tournament at Indian Wells, where she and her family were booed and, according to her father, Richard, subjected to racist taunts, spoke louder than words. She has had major outbursts that have cost her some fans. But she has been consistently inspiring, as a champion and a Black woman who roared back after major setbacks in her professional and personal life.Those include the murder of her half sister Yetunde Price; the separation and divorce of her parents; a blood clot in her lung in 2011 that she said had her on her “death bed”; and another dangerous blood clotting issue during the birth of her daughter, Olympia, in 2017.Resilience is a mark of greatness, too, and though she may or may not be the greatest in a very strong field, it is certainly one more reason to appreciate her as she walks into the din on Monday night — less than a month from her 41st birthday — to play in one last U.S. Open.

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      On the First Day of US Open, All Eyes Are on Serena Williams

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      There are 63 other matches on opening day, but they have been relegated to the background as Williams prepares to play what could be her final singles match.Iga Swiatek is seeded No. 1 for the first time this year at the U.S. Open and is trying to secure her first Grand Slam title somewhere other than the red clay of Roland Garros.But on the eve of the U.S. Open, Swiatek had another priority: finally working up the courage to meet Serena Williams, a formidable champion whom Swiatek said made her feel like “a kid from kindergarten just looking at her.”On Sunday, Swiatek posted a photograph of her with Williams on her social media accounts: “This is the highlight of my day,” Swiatek wrote on Twitter. “Congratulations on your amazing journey and legendary career @serenawilliams. Huge respect for everything you have done for our sport.”It has been that sort of buildup to this year’s final Grand Slam tournament. There are an abundance of established and emerging players and story lines at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. But they are all relegated to the background for now as Williams, one of the greatest athletes of any generation, prepares to play what could be her final singles match on Monday night in the first round against the unseeded Danka Kovinic.Until this year, no Chinese man had qualified to play in the U.S. Open but two managed it this year — 25-year-old Zhang Zhizhen and 22-year-old Wu Yibing — and they are on Monday’s schedule after practicing together on Court 8 on Sunday with a small crowd of predominantly Mandarin-speaking fans applauding their efforts and besieging them for autographs and photographs when the training session ended.On Monday, Americans Elizabeth Mandlik and Brandon Holt, both children of U.S. Open singles champions, will make their own Grand Slam debuts. Mandlik, the daughter of Hana Mandlikova, will face Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia. Holt, the son of Tracy Austin, will face Taylor Fritz, the No. 10 seed and top-ranked American who is himself the son of former top 10 women’s player Kathy May.Also on Monday, Dominic Thiem, the 2020 U.S. Open men’s champion, will return to the tournament after missing last year’s Open with a serious wrist injury. He has a tough assignment against Pablo Carreño Busta, the smooth-moving Spaniard who has twice been a semifinalist at the U.S. Open and recently won the Masters 1000 tournament in Canada. But all those intriguing tennis stories will take a back seat to Williams vs. Kovinic, and even the other tennis players have been looking for opportunities to meet and catch up with Williams.“I watch her my whole life,” Swiatek, the 21-year-old Polish star, said of the 40-year-old Williams. “Basically she was everywhere, because she always won and was somewhere in the semifinals or the finals. I didn’t always feel like I’m this kind of player who can play similar tennis, because she always seemed so strong, really stronger than any of her opponents physically. But mentally for sure, she’s the one who’s going to show you how to use your position and how to kind of intimidate with being No. 1. I’m trying to do that. I don’t know if it’s going well or not.”Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Decades of Greatness: Over 27 years, Serena Williams dominated generation after generation of opponents and changed the way women’s tennis is played, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and cementing her reputation as the queen of comebacks.Is She the GOAT?: Proclaiming Williams the greatest women’s tennis player of all time is not a straightforward debate, our columnist writes.An Enduring Influence: From former and current players’ memories of a young Williams to the new fans she drew to tennis, Williams left a lasting impression.Her Fashion: Since she turned professional in 1995, Williams has used her clothes as a statement of self and a weapon of change.For Swiatek, Williams’s ability to juggle outside interests and motherhood with her tennis career have been a “great example.”“I think it’s great that we have somebody like that in our sport who cleared the path and showed us that you can do anything,” she said. “The sky’s the limit.”Naomi Osaka, a former No. 1 and two-time U.S. Open champion trying to recover her mojo after an unsuccessful stretch, spent more of her news conference on Friday answering questions about Williams than any other topic.“I think that her legacy is really wide to the point where you can’t even describe it in words,” Osaka said. “She changed the sport so much. She’s introduced people that have never heard of tennis into the sport. I think I’m a product of what she’s done. I wouldn’t be here without Serena, Venus, her whole family. I’m very thankful to her.”Grigor Dimitrov, the 17th seed in the men’s draw, catching up with Serena Williams during a practice session on Sunday.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesOsaka’s family did use the extraordinary success of the Williamses as a “blueprint,” according to Osaka’s father Leonard Francois.Naomi Osaka made her Grand Slam breakthrough by upsetting Serena Williams in the 2018 U.S. Open final in a match where Williams was penalized a game after a series of code violations by chair umpire Carlos Ramos. Osaka ended up in tears at the on-court awards ceremony amid boos from the stands, which were not directed at her but at the way the final had unfolded.She and Williams have long since moved on from that traumatic evening and developed a strong intergenerational connection.When Williams played (and lost) in the first round of the Western and Southern Open earlier this month to Emma Raducanu, Osaka was in the stands, eager not to miss the opportunity after Williams had announced that the end of her playing career was imminent.“I remember seeing an interview she did, I don’t know what it was, like an on-court thing, that if she retires, she’ll never tell anyone,” Osaka said. “I was really scared: Dang, when is the last time she’s going to play? Just to see her announce it and let people appreciate her legacy is really cool.”Monday night will not be the last chance to do so: Win or lose against Kovinic, Serena is entered in the women’s doubles with her older sister Venus Williams.But Monday night should be quite a moment, a sporting and cultural happening that comes on the 25th anniversary of Arthur Ashe Stadium, still the biggest permanent tennis venue in the world with its capacity of 23,771.While Venus, unseeded, reached the women’s singles final the year Ashe Stadium opened in 1997, Serena did not get to play a match in the main stadium. But she did make her Grand Slam and U.S. Open debut, losing in the first round of doubles with her sister to Kathy Rinaldi and Jill Hetherington.A quarter century later, Venus, 42, and Serena are the only women in this year’s draw who also played in the 1997 Open.It is a moment to celebrate, an era to commemorate, and though there is no shortage of matches on Monday worth watching closely, there can be no doubt about which match is generating the biggest buzz. More

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      In Comebacks, Serena Williams Showed ‘You Can Never Underestimate Her’

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      Big moments on the biggest stages cemented Williams’s reputation as the queen of comebacks.During the 2012 U.S. Open final, Serena Williams was so close to losing that the idea of a comeback seemed out of the question.Her opponent, Victoria Azarenka, had gone up 5-3 in the final set, giving her numerous ways to put Williams away.“I was preparing my runners-up speech,” Williams said.Instead, she delivered what became a signature comeback of her career, breaking Azarenka’s serve twice and winning the championship without losing another game.The significance of that victory went beyond the title itself, as it turned around a year in which she had lost in the first round of the French Open. And as Williams comes close to retiring, that win illustrates how many fans will remember her tennis career — Williams coming back time and again under difficult circumstances.Here are some of the moments that helped Williams build that reputation.Australian Open, 2007Dean Treml/Agence France-Presse – Getty ImagesAfter struggling with a knee injury for much of 2006, Williams went into the 2007 Australian Open unseeded and ranked No. 81. But she went on to win the tournament, defeating Maria Sharapova.“She goes months without playing a match, loses in a tuneup and then runs the table,” Jon Wertheim, a Tennis Channel commentator and author, said.Pam Shriver, an ESPN tennis analyst, said that Williams entered the Australian Open that year in poor shape, but that by the end of the tournament, “she almost looked like a different player.”“That was one of the most memorable comebacks that I can remember that resulted in a major championship,” Shriver said.After the match, Sharapova said to the crowd in Rod Laver Arena that “you can never underestimate her as an opponent.”“I don’t think many of you expected her to be in the final, but I definitely did,” Sharapova said.2011 Health ScareChris Trotman/Getty ImagesIn February 2011, Williams was hospitalized with a pulmonary embolism. Williams recovered in time to play Wimbledon, and later revealed the seriousness of her health scare.“I was literally on my deathbed at one point,” Williams said at the time. The circumstances, she said, changed her perspective, and she went into Wimbledon that year with “nothing to lose.”Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Decades of Greatness: Over 27 years, Serena Williams dominated generation after generation of opponents and changed the way women’s tennis is played, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and cementing her reputation as the queen of comebacks.Is She the GOAT?: Proclaiming Williams the greatest women’s tennis player of all time is not a straightforward debate, our columnist writes.An Enduring Influence: From former and current players’ memories of a young Williams to the new fans she drew to tennis, Williams left a lasting impression.Her Fashion: Since she turned professional in 1995, Williams has used her clothes as a statement of self and a weapon of change.Williams made it to the round of 16. Then, she won her next two tournaments, the Bank of the West Classic in California and the Rogers Cup in Canada. She finished her year by reaching the U.S. Open final, where she lost to Samantha Stosur.“That comeback was unbelievable,” Shriver said. “No matter the score, no matter whatever, she still thought she could win.”2012 Summer RunDoug Mills/The New York TimesWilliams was eliminated from the 2012 Australian Open in the round of 16, and she was upset at that year’s French Open, where she was knocked out in the first round.“When she lost in the French Open in the first round, the career buzzards came circling,” Wertheim said. “There were plenty of times her career was supposed to be over, and she came back. The obvious one is 2012.”Williams responded to the losses by training under a new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, who went on to work with her for the next decade.And after that French Open, Williams went on a streak. She won Wimbledon before taking the gold medals in women’s singles and doubles at the London Olympics, and then she delivered her win against Azarenka at the U.S. Open, “playing some of the most inspiring tennis of her career,” Wertheim said.French Open, 2015Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesAt the French Open in 2015, Williams lost the first set of three consecutive matches. Each time, she came back to win in three sets.“Opponents were points away from eliminating her, and Serena simply refused to go off the court anything other than the winner,” Wertheim said.Williams went on to win the semifinal while dealing with a bout of the flu.The day after the semifinal, still sick, Williams said she briefly thought about withdrawing from the final.“Out of 10 — a 10 being like take me to the hospital — I went from like a 6 to a 12 in a matter of two hours,” she said at the time. “I was just miserable. I was literally in my bed shaking, and I was just shaking, and I just started thinking positive.”Williams won the final for her 20th major singles title.Pregnancy ComebackClive Mason/Getty ImagesIn 2017, Williams surprised the tennis world when she shared that she had won that year’s Australian Open while she was close to two months pregnant.Williams missed the rest of the 2017 tennis season, and had another major health scare after she gave birth to her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian. Williams was bedridden for her six weeks after she had blood clots in her lungs. Severe coughing caused her cesarean section wound to open. And doctors found a large hematoma, a collection of blood outside the blood vessels, in her abdomen.She returned to tennis in 2018, when she reached the Wimbledon final (where she lost to Angelique Kerber) and the U.S. Open final (where she lost to Naomi Osaka). The following year, she reached the Wimbledon final (losing to Simona Halep) and the U.S. Open final again (losing to Bianca Andreescu).“To have a child in the north half of your 30s and reach four major finals is an extraordinary feat that hasn’t gotten the full due,” Wertheim said.The Farewell ComebackHiroko Masuike/The New York TimesWilliams was forced to withdraw early in her first-round Wimbledon match last year because of an injury. She was given a standing ovation as she walked off the court in tears, as many began to wonder whether it would be the last time Williams would appear at the All England Club.She returned to Centre Court at Wimbledon this year but was defeated in the first round. She continued to struggle after that, losing early in the tournaments she has entered. At the National Bank Open in Toronto, Coco Gauff said that she was moved by how Williams has continued playing and “giving it her all.”“There’s nothing else she needs to give us in the game,” Gauff told reporters. “I just love that.”Williams will attempt one more comeback at this year’s U.S. Open. Along with her singles draw, she will also play in the women’s doubles tournament, partnered with her sister Venus. While we wait to see how this comeback takes shape, one certainty, Shriver said, is that Williams will be playing with the support of her fans.“The crowd is going to be crazy,” Shriver said. “I think the noise on a Serena win will be some of the loudest noise we’ve ever heard at the U.S. Open.” More

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      Serena Williams: 23 Grand Slam Titles, in the Books

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      The New York Times’s coverage of Williams’s 23 Grand Slam singles titles reflects more than two decades of greatness, and some surprises along the way.How long has Serena Williams been a champion? She won her first Grand Slam singles title in the 20th century.Williams was 17 when she won the 1999 U.S. Open. She had beads in her hair and, even at that early stage, plenty of sting in her strokes as she knocked out five past or future major champions, including the 18-year-old Martina Hingis in the final.“Oh, my God, I won, oh my God,” Williams said, her hand to her chest, looking as surprised as the rest of us.Williams has seldom been the underdog since, but surprises have continued to be her trademark.When she won the 2017 Australian Open, she was well aware that she was two months pregnant, but she kept the secret from all but her closest friends and family during the tournament and in the weeks that followed.Now, the trophy from that victory sits on a shelf in the bedroom of her daughter, Olympia, who will turn 5 in September.A strong argument can be made that that victory, which was Williams’s 23rd Grand Slam singles title, was as remarkable as her first, when she became the first African American woman since Althea Gibson in 1958 to win the U.S. Open.Seven of Williams’s other major singles victories have come against her older sister Venus, who was born just 15 months ahead of her.Williams, who said in Vogue this month that she plans to retire from tennis, is one championship shy of Margaret Court’s career record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles. Williams is set to compete again in this year’s U.S. Open, which could be her last chance to tie Court’s record.“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that record,” Williams told the magazine. “Obviously I do. But day to day, I’m really not thinking about her.”Here are excerpts from The New York Times’s coverage of Williams’s 23 Grand Slam titles.1999 U.S. OPENDefeated Martina Hingis, 6-3, 7-6Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesUsing her racket like a stun gun to pound and paralyze her savvy opponent, the No. 1-ranked Martina Hingis, into submission, Serena Williams, the 17-year-old follow-up act to her big sister phenom, Venus, captured the women’s championship at the United States Open in her first appearance in a Grand Slam final.“Oh, my God, I won, oh my God,” the jubilant Williams mouthed, clasping both hands to her thumping heart, after Hingis motored a double-handed backhand out of bounds on Williams’s third match point. That sealed a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) upset for the youngest of the five Williams sisters, the one who calls herself the family extrovert. — Robin FinnRead the full article2002 French OpenDefeated Venus Williams, 7-5, 6-3Phil Cole/Getty ImagesOf the two, Serena Williams was always the one without a gatekeeper on her emotions when placed in the awkward position of playing her older sister.It was hard to forget: Venus was the one she always leaned on as a child; the one who gave up her milk money when Serena lost hers; the one with the stoic veneer of a bodyguard.Today, the Williams sisters reversed roles. Serena held on, while Venus came undone. Once the last unsteady backhand by Venus plunged into the net on the 15th stroke of match point, Serena bent over in pure relief, winning the French Open, 7-5, 6-3, and taking her first major title since the 1999 United States Open. — Selena RobertsRead the full article2002 WimbledonDefeated Venus Williams, 7-6(4), 6-3Serena Williams would punch a forehand into the deepest corner of the court, at angled degrees of difficulty that defied the condor wingspan of her older sister Venus.At times, she would throw a fist, growl or scream to punctuate her winner. At times, Venus would wince, drop her head or coax herself to try harder with an audible “Come on!”Unveiling their emotions, playing with the ferocity normally reserved only for others, Venus and Serena discarded their sibling code of conduct during Wimbledon final.They played each other, no mental baggage attached. Once Serena tucked away her first Wimbledon title, 7-6 (4), 6-3, throwing down a 103-mile-an-hour serve that was too twisting for Venus to return, they greeted each other at the net like ordinary rivals.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Decades of Greatness: Over 27 years, Serena Williams dominated generation after generation of opponents and changed the way women’s tennis is played, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and cementing her reputation as the queen of comebacks.Is She the GOAT?: Proclaiming Williams the greatest women’s tennis player of all time is not a straightforward debate, our columnist writes.An Enduring Influence: From former and current players’ memories of a young Williams to the new fans she drew to tennis, Williams left a lasting impression.Her Fashion: Since she turned professional in 1995, Williams has used her clothes as a statement of self and a weapon of change.A pat on the back, a kind word, and then Serena was off, waving toward the crowd with a smile as wide as the English Channel, finishing off a day when two African-Americans played in a Wimbledon final for the first time.Venus was happy for her little sister, but not the way she was at the French Open, which was won by Serena last month, when Venus snapped pictures with the photographers. Much more subdued, almost moribund, Venus may have been coming to grips with the fact that, at this moment, her little sister is the more dangerous of the two. — Selena RobertsRead the full article2002 U.S. OpenDefeated Venus Williams, 6-4, 6-3Vincent Laforet/The New York TimesIn the beginning, Venus Williams handed down the secret formula to her little sister, Serena, provided all the answers in the back of the book, but last night the one who took on tennis first left the court worn down from a season of disheartening discovery: the copy has become better than the original.Although visibly drained, Venus Williams is not the type to expose her emotions in an Oprah-style catharsis. So, she forced a smile afterSerena Williams picked her apart during a 6-4, 6-3 victory for the United States Open championship; and Venus patted her younger sister on the shoulder after Serena’s third major championship in a row, each at Venus’s expense. — Selena RobertsRead the full article2003 Australian OpenDefeated Venus Williams, 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4Mark Dadswell/Getty ImagesLess than a year ago, after she had to withdraw from the Australian Open with a sprained ankle, she was still trying to catch up with her big sister. But in a breathtaking, fist-pumping, title-gobbling hurry, Serena Williams has become one of the greats.She confirmed it at Rod Laver Arena, maintaining her edge over her older sibling Venus by a much slimmer margin than usual to win this year’s Australian Open, 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4, and become only the fifth woman to hold all four Grand Slam singles titles at once.“It’s really special to have come such a long way,” she said.It was not quite a true Grand Slam, which requires winning the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the United States Open in the same calendar year. That feat was achieved by Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988. Instead, Serena has chosen to dub her run the Serena Slam, an allusion to Tiger Woods’s similar achievement in golf. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2003 WimbledonDefeated Venus Williams, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2Once again, Serena Williams won a Grand Slam singles title with mixed emotions.In ordinary circumstances, defending a Wimbledon title would be, at the least, cause for a whoop of delight and the broadest of grins, but there is nothing ordinary about the story of the Williams sisters. When the latest, plot-enriching chapter came to a close with Venus Williams’s forehand return flying wide, Serena’s reaction was muted as she jogged to the net.It might be getting easier for Serena to play her older sister, but it is still not nearly the same as matching huge ground strokes and healthy egos with an outsider. Playing Venus when she was injured only added a layer of complexity.“I just had to tell myself to look at the ball and nothing else,” Serena told the crowd on Center Court after a 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory gave her a sixth Grand Slam singles title. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2005 Australian OpenDefeated Lindsay Davenport, 2-6, 6-3, 6-0Nick Laham/Getty ImagesThere were no match points to be saved, no steady accumulation of suspense, no gravity-defying series of leaps when victory was secure.But it was a surprising turnabout just the same, and though Williams was walking and serving gingerly in the early stages of this Australian Open final, she was soon swinging freely and watching Lindsay Davenport’s errant groundstrokes and second serves fly by at a great, anticlimactic rate.Midway through the lopsided third set, it appeared obvious to everyone under the closed roof in Rod Laver Arena, including Davenport, that Williams was on her way to her second Australian Open title and seventh Grand Slam singles title. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2007 Australian OpenDefeated Maria Sharapova, 6-1, 6-2It has been two weeks of turning back the clock for Serena Williams, and under a closed roof during the Australian Open women’s final Saturday, she completed her astoundingly quick trip back to dominance against the top-seeded Maria Sharapova.Under the lights, she was the relentless Williams of yore: crushing returns and first serves, casting ominous glances across the net and showing not the slightest hint of vulnerability as she raced to a 6-1, 6-2 victory.The rout, which required just one hour and three minutes, capped one of the most remarkable comebacks in tennis history, and it came against the young, confident woman who will regain the No. 1 ranking on Monday.But there could be no doubt about who was No. 1 Saturday, as Williams applied enormous pressure from the start and methodically extracted all the suspense to win her eighth Grand Slam singles title and third Australian Open title. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2008 U.S. OpenDefeated Jelena Jankovic, 6-4, 7-5Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNo world No. 1 in women’s tennis has slogged through so desolate a valley between peaks than Serena Williams. After relinquishing the top spot in August 2003, Williams fell so far that she wasn’t within echoing distance of the summit two years ago.Outside the top 125 at this time in 2006, Williams completed her climb back to No. 1 Sunday night with a 6-4, 7-5 victory against Jelena Jankovic to claim her third United States Open title. — Karen CrouseRead the full article2009 Australian OpenDefeated Dinara Safina, 6-0, 6-3The women’s final had finished in less than an hour, and Serena Williams was walking down the hall in Melbourne Park lined with photos of past Australian Open champions, including herself.In her arms, held tightly to her chest, was the large Daphne Akhurst Trophy that goes to the women’s champion.“It’s mine again,” Williams said in a lilting voice.Williams got no argument from Dinara Safina on Saturday night. After two weeks of uncertainty about the true state of Williams’s form, suddenly there was nothing but brutal clarity. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2009 WimbledonDefeated Venus Williams, 7-6 (3), 6-2Hamish Blair/Getty ImagesWimbledon has long been the Williams sisters’ territory, but it was Venus, not Serena, who had the biggest stake in the place. It was Venus who had won five singles titles, including the last two. It was Venus who had won 20 straight singles matches and 34 straight sets.Despite few hints of regime change in the early rounds, this did not turn out to be her year. Instead, it was younger sister Serena’s turn to keep the Wimbledon inscribers busy. She broke open this often-edgy final midway through the second set and then secured her third Wimbledon singles title by breaking Venus’s serve in a tight final game to win. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2010 Australian OpenDefeated Justine Henin, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2As Serena Williams collapsed on the court, weary and elated after capturing her fifth Australian Open title, those who follow tennis, or perhaps sports of any kind, knew they had witnessed the performance of a great champion. She had turned back a pretty good champion in Justine Henin for a hard-fought victory.Williams, 28, fought through pain to earn it — her right thigh and left knee and wrist were wrapped, as they have been for the past two weeks. And her grimaces and hobbled steps as she battled Henin further betrayed her distress.Williams’s ability to endure is one of her vital intangibles, as is her ardor for the competitive part of the game. — Joe DrapeRead the full article2010 WimbledonDefeated Vera Zvonareva, 6-3, 6-2Alastair Grant/Associated PressAt the end of the Wimbledon women’s singles final, Serena Williams turned toward her family in the stands. She flashed 10 fingers, then 3 fingers, for a total of 13 — her updated tally of Grand Slam singles titles.With her demolition of Vera Zvonareva, Williams accumulated another avalanche of aces, hoisted another trophy and took another step forward among tennis’s greats. Afterward, she confirmed what once seemed obvious, another otherworldly performance notwithstanding.“I’m totally human,” Williams said.The latest trophy marked her fourth Wimbledon singles title and allowed her to pass Billie Jean King for sixth place on the women’s career major singles championships list. In an on-court interview, her smile as wide as the English Channel, Williams said, “Hey, Billie, I got you.” — Greg BishopRead the full article2012 WimbledonDefeated Agnieszka Radwanska, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2For Serena Williams, the tears came slowly, a release of all the emotions that had accumulated over the last two weeks, the last two months, the last two years.There was the euphoria of winning her fifth singles title at Wimbledon, tying her older sister Venus, and her 14th in a Grand Slam tournament. The satisfaction of purging a shocking French Open implosion and the aura of vulnerability that followed. The relief that comes with reviving a career on the brink, from cheating death, from outlasting a patient and persistent adversary who threatened with a comeback nearly as stirring as Williams’s.Her appreciation of these moments is greater than it was 13 years ago, when at age 17 she announced her presence at the 1999 United States Open. There is an element of selflessness, of humility, that comes, perhaps, with age and maturity. Now 30, Williams is the first woman in her 30s to capture a Grand Slam since Martina Navratilova won Wimbledon in 1990 at age 33.“Oh my God, I can’t even describe it,” Williams said during an on-court interview on a blustery and chilly Centre Court. — Ben ShpigelRead the full article2012 U.S. OpenDefeated Victoria Azarenka, 6-2, 2-6, 7-5Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesAfter a set, a fourth United States Open title for Serena Williams looked like a foregone conclusion as she ripped serves and ground strokes at Arthur Ashe with the same intimidating blend of power and precision that has defined her summer.Who could have imagined then that by the end of this evening, victory would come as a surprise, leaving Williams with her eyes wide and her hands to her head?“I was preparing my runners-up speech,” Williams said.She would have been obliged to deliver it if the world’s No. 1-ranked player, Victoria Azarenka, had seized her opportunity when serving for the match at 5-4 in the third set. Although Azarenka had done an often-admirable job of coping with Williams’s first-strike pressure in this big-swinging final, she could not quite handle the chance to win her first United States Open.Williams, whose form and body language had fluctuated wildly after the opening set, would not lose her way again, putting an exclamation point on the feel-good story of her summer of tennis by closing out a victory that will rank among her most memorable. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2013 French OpenDefeated Maria Sharapova, 6-4, 6-4Kenzo Triboulliard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSerena Williams has tried to master French, as she has finally mastered the French Open again. So after she had served five aces in her last seven service points to beat Maria Sharapova, and had gone down on her knees and put her head to the clay in celebration, Williams kept up her recent habit of making her postmatch remarks to the crowd in the local language.“I’m incredible,” she said in French.That is probably not what she meant to say. But for accuracy, if not for her command of a second language, it is hard to argue with the sentiment. And it is now possible to make the case that she has a chance to become the greatest women’s player in tennis history.Williams seized one of the few achievements that had eluded her — a second French Open, to match the one she won in 2002, a tennis lifetime ago. At 31, she has won 16 Grand Slam singles events, and appears nowhere near finished. — Judy BattistaRead the full article2013 U.S. OpenDefeated Victoria Azarenka, 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-1As it turned out, after 2 hours 45 minutes of raw emotion and territorial tennis, Serena Williams really could play in the wind, just as she has played and prevailed in so many conditions and circumstances through the years.With her 32nd birthday approaching, Williams is in increasingly rare company as the major titles continue to pile up. Although she certainly wobbled in Sunday’s United States Open final — the longest recorded women’s Open final — and although Victoria Azarenka applied plenty of intense, next-generation pressure, there was ultimately no depriving Williams of another major celebration on a court where she has experienced plenty of disaster to go with her triumphs through the years.A less resilient champion might have continued to fall apart after collapsing in the second set. Instead, Williams exhaled and willed herself into a more peaceful and less conflicted place: one where neither Azarenka nor the wind, that cursed wind, could knock her down. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2014 U.S. OpenDefeated Caroline Wozniacki, 6-3, 6-3Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesSerena Williams was asked what the number 18 meant to her.“It means legal to do some things,” she said, laughing.But she knew what the reporter was getting at.“It also means legendary,” she added more seriously.She would not go so far as to call herself legendary — “I’m just Serena,” she said — but she joined some elite company Sunday, when she tied Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova with her 18th Grand Slam singles title.Williams had not advanced past the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament this year, and over the last two weeks she had expressed relief and excitement at her success at the U.S. Open. When Wozniacki’s final stroke went long, Williams collapsed on her back and started to cry. In a postmatch interview, she choked up saying the word 18. — Naila-Jean MeyersRead the full article2015 Australian OpenDefeated Maria Sharapova, 6-3, 7-6 (5)The record still shows that Maria Sharapova is a pushover for Serena Williams: her muse, her matchup made in tennis heaven.Williams’s victory in the Australian Open final extended her winning streak against Sharapova to 16 matches, despite all the velocity and volume that Sharapova has mustered over the last decade.Forget head-to-head. This is off with her head.Yet Williams, who said she had a severe cold for much of this tournament, encountered some headwinds. She left the court during a rain delay in the first set and, for the first time in her nearly 20 years as a professional, threw up during a match. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2015 French OpenDefeated Lucie Safarova, 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-2Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesSerena Williams was too ill to get out of bed for most of Friday. She was too tightly wound to close out what would have been a routine straight-set victory against Lucie Safarova on Saturday.But as Williams’s increasingly remarkable tennis career has made clear, she is never more dangerous than when cornered.This obstacle course of a French Open provided reminders in nearly every round as Williams hit, shrieked, swore and coughed her way through all kinds of trouble, including five three-set matches and a nasty case of the flu.Saturday’s 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-2 victory over Safarova was a fitting finale to what might have been Williams’s most challenging run to a Grand Slam singles title. — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2015 WimbledonDefeated Garbiñe Muguruza, 6-4, 6-4Three years had passed since the Wimbledon champion’s trophy was last in her possession, so Serena Williams had some fun with it.She held it high on Centre Court with both strong arms (classic). She balanced it on her head like a book in a 1950s charm school and walked with it (unconventional). At one stage, she even playfully declined to hand it back to a Wimbledon official (understandable).“At the beginning of the year, this is the one I really wanted to win,” Williams said. “So that was the first thing and the main thing on my mind.” — Christopher ClareyRead the full article2016 WimbledonDefeated Angelique Kerber, 7-5, 6-3Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn the first point of the women’s final at Wimbledon, Angelique Kerber ended a rally with a forehand winner down the line.On the next, a Serena Williams backhand winner scorched the baseline.Yes, it was going to be one of those matches. But in contrast with the outcome of their duel in the Australian Open final in January, Williams came out as the winner.Williams tied Steffi Graf’s Open-era record for Grand Slam singles titles, gaining her 22nd. The win left her two short of Margaret Court’s overall record of 24 Grand Slam titles from 1960 to 1973.Williams, 34, had not won a major championship since last year’s Wimbledon, losing in the semifinals at the 2015 United States Open and the finals at the Australian and French Opens this year.Although she had tried to play down the importance of No. 22, she acknowledged that it was a “relief” to get there, and that there had been “some sleepless nights” after her recent Grand Slam losses. — Naila-Jean MeyersRead the full article2017 Australian OpenDefeated Venus Williams, 6-4, 6-4Michael Dodge/Getty ImagesThe tennis circuit can be an echo chamber where the same questions and themes reverberate from week to week as the locations change, but the protagonists do not.So even if Serena Williams refused to entertain questions during the tournament about the possibility of winning her 23rd Grand Slam singles title and breaking her tie for the Open-era record with Steffi Graf, there was no dodging that number in her own head.Now, after her 6-4, 6-4 victory over her sister, she can celebrate No. 23 instead of fret over it.“I’ve been chasing it for a really long time,” Williams said. “When it got on my radar, I knew I had an opportunity to get there, and I’m here. It’s a great feeling. No better place to do it than Melbourne.” — Christopher ClareyRead the full article More

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      Serena Williams’s Legacy On the Court All About Power and Intimidation

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      Serena Williams did not invent a tennis shot, although she certainly came close to perfecting one with her serve.She was not, in the absolute sense, a pioneer for elite Black tennis players. Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe were the first Black players to face down the barriers to entry and succeed at the highest level, followed by champions like Zina Garrison and Yannick Noah.But there is no doubt, with Williams about to play in her farewell U.S. Open just ahead of turning 41, that she changed the game she long dominated; the game she has learned, over time, to treasure.Her legacy, which is in many respects shared with her older sister and soulmate Venus Williams, is evident in the powerful, aggressive style that has become the norm, if not quite the rule, on tour. See the full-cut, all-action, rip-the-return approach of No. 1 Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina, the new Wimbledon champion.“One of the greatest impacts Serena had is she definitely took the game to a different level,” said Mary Joe Fernandez, the ESPN analyst and former WTA star whose playing career overlapped with those of the Williamses. “Serena changed it in different ways, whether physically, mentally or movement-wise. It just got better, and it got better because of Serena and also Venus.”The legacy is also there in the presence of talented young Black women’s stars like Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka and in the increasing number of Black junior players, who, along with their families, have used the Williams sisters as a template. Another indicator: 10 of the top 30 Americans in this week’s WTA singles rankings are Black or biracial (and none of those 10 is a Williams sister at this stage).Williams, right, talks to Naomi Osaka after their women’s singles semifinal at the 2021 Australian Open.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“I think everything started with Venus and Serena,” said Martin Blackman, general manager of player development at the United States Tennis Association. “There’s no doubt about the power and the impact of that demonstration effect. I think it was even more powerful because they grew up in Compton, and no matter where you live, you know that Compton is a tough place to grow up. And what their parents Richard and Oracene did to get them what they needed to become champions is just an unbelievable American success story.”That story, as Blackman points out, has resonated not just with African-American families. It has much broader reach.“It could be Latino, Asian or Caucasian — it doesn’t matter. It transcends all races,” said Nick Saviano, a veteran American coach who owns an academy in Florida and has worked with leading pro players like Sloane Stephens, Amanda Anisimova, Eugenie Bouchard and Gauff.“I see the Williamses’s impact every day,” Saviano said. “If I go to a 10-and-under tournament I see it. I see more people from different ethnic backgrounds. I see people daring to dream big.”In pure tennis terms, when it comes to the actual playing of the game, the Williams sisters have been more about evolution than revolution, more about the often-irresistible quality of the overall package than groundbreaking innovation. And though Serena has undoubtedly been the greatest player of this era, Venus, with a similar tool kit, did come first and is inextricably part of the step change.“I like to look at them individually and at their individual accomplishments, but it’s hard to separate them because they helped each other be great,” said Corey Gauff, father and coach of Coco Gauff.Venus and Serena Williams playing doubles at the U.S. Open in 2009.Raymond McCrea Jones/The New York TimesThe great women’s players who preceded the sisters had plenty of strengths. Chris Evert was a paragon of cool and consistency. Martina Navratilova set new standards for fitness and attacking prowess, relishing life at the net. Steffi Graf had speed and explosive power off her unconventional, often-airborne forehand, and her crisply chipped backhand was devilish in a different way: skidding low and proving difficult to attack.Monica Seles, with deft double-handed groundstrokes, was a relentless ball-striker and in-the-moment competitor who hugged the baseline and could hit winners off the short bounce with her forehand or her backhand. The relatively underpowered Martina Hingis played tennis akin to chess or geometry by changing paces, angles and trajectories.But Venus and then, very quickly, Serena posed an unprecedented, multipronged threat. They were big servers and big hitters who could also sprint into the corners, players who could produce winners with any stroke and make their side of the court look frightfully small to the opposition.“It was just like another dimension of physicality, power and mental toughness,” Fernandez said. “I think those are the three things that stood out: how hard and how consistently they were able to hit the ball and how well they were able to cover the court and then the grit. I mean, to beat Serena you had to knock her out a few times.”Serena Williams became known for her powerful serve.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesFernandez, a three-time Grand Slam singles finalist once ranked as high as No. 4, said the Williamses’s emergence contributed to her decision to retire in 2000.“I caught Serena and Venus at the end of my career, but they’re one of the reasons I was like, ‘OK, the game has evolved now, and I can’t keep up’,” she said “It was such a struggle to be able to withstand it. I couldn’t match it, so I just knew this was now a different level, a different stage in the sport. Game-wise, I think they both improved as years went by, both became better players and became students of the game, but it was just that dominant power, court coverage and intensity.”Justine Henin, the Belgian star with the gorgeous one-handed backhand who was one of Serena’s early and fiercest rivals, said that the intimidation was real.“We can talk all we want about her tennis qualities, but one of her strengths was to show that she was convinced that she was going to walk right over you even though normally she should have been full of doubts like all players,” Henin said of Serena in a recent interview with the French publication L’Équipe. “That generated all kinds of fears for her opponents. I was afraid for a long time.”Swiatek, Gauff and the new wave of women’s players seem less inclined to intimidate their opponents, though anyone who has experienced Aryna Sabalenka roar as she generates startlingly easy power can detect a sonic and attitudinal link with Serena.The Williams sisters popularized the open-stance backhand and the swing or drive volley, though they were not the progenitors.Serena Williams plays a backhand at the 2019 Australian Open.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times“People say Serena was not a great volleyer, and no, she wouldn’t be categorized as having a great forehand or backhand volley,” Saviano said. “Because most of the time she was finishing points with swinging volleys, and she was brilliant at it.”The sisters also re-emphasized the importance of early preparation on the backhand.“Super early,” Saviano said. “They basically just pulled the racket back almost immediately and waited for the ball. Technically, that was a bit unusual.”They followed Seles’s lead by attacking second serves relentlessly, even when the errors sometimes piled up.The next generation clearly took note, and it is a tribute to both sisters and part of their heritage that their power is no longer a cut above. Their successors have adapted, as Emma Raducanu, last year’s surprise U.S. Open champion from Britain, made clear when she beat Serena, 6-4, 6-0, in the first round of the Western and Southern Open this month. Raducanu counterpunched coolly and effectively when Serena upped the volume and velocity.Though there were true power servers in the pre-Williams years like Brenda Schultz-McCarthy of the Netherlands, Serena raised the bar with her smooth and potent serve. More women on tour are capable of regularly approaching 110 miles per hour and beyond with their first serves, players like Rybakina, Osaka, Sabalenka, Gauff, Karolina Pliskova and Maria Sakkari.“I really think Serena let people know if you’re strong and tall and want to be successful in tennis, you can serve this big,” said Rennae Stubbs, the ESPN analyst and former world No. 1 doubles player from Australia who has also coached stars like Pliskova.A fan holds a sign in support of Serena Williams during the match between Williams and Emma Raducanu of Great Britain during the Western & Southern Open in August.Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesStubbs is providing Serena with on-court advice this week during practice as part of the coaching team. “I’m just helping; I’m advising,” she said. “We’ve been great friends for a long time, and I’m just helping her as much as I can to finish this career the way it deserves to be finished.”Stubbs added: “Whatever happens, she has proved herself to be truly one of the great athletes of all time, and we’re going to miss her passion. That’s the word I think that epitomizes Serena so well is just passion for the game of tennis and sports and passion for excellence. That’s what separates the great ones.”She continued: “And when they felt the excellence was not there anymore, they could walk away. And I think that’s where Serena is at right now.”Though Serena has announced that the end is near, she still is not prepared to state plainly that the U.S. Open is her last tournament, even as she prepares to face Danka Kovinic, an unseeded Montenegrin, in the first round on Monday night.“I don’t know, I think so, but who knows?” she said on Thursday during a public appearance hosted by a Manhattan hotel.The Australian Open, the next Grand Slam tournament on the calendar, starts in January. Could she be there?“I don’t think so,” she said. “You never know. I’ve learned in my career: Never say never.”Serena Williams practices at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThere is a message in her resistance to goodbye, as well. She has played far longer than even she expected or her father, Richard, predicted. In doing so, in coming back from childbirth at age 36 to play several more seasons, she has reminded the younger generation to follow their own timelines, much as Navratilova did before her and as her 41-year-old contemporary Roger Federer has done in the game that he also is clearly loath to leave.“I think one of the best things Serena has given to this sport is her longevity and still wanting to be great,” Stubbs said.That is part of her legacy, too. More

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      Serena Williams Always Made a Strong First Impression

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      Long before Williams won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, she was turning heads. Countless memories fade, but not, it seems, when Williams was involved.From the time she was a young girl until this month, when she announced the approaching end of her tennis career on the cover of the September issue of Vogue, Serena Williams has always made a strong impression.Ask people around tennis about their first encounter with Williams or their first glimpse of her, and almost invariably they respond with a memory so crisp and detailed that the moment might as well have happened last week.Billie Jean King, the tennis icon and founder of the WTA, said in her 2021 autobiography “All In” that she first met a 6-year-old Williams and her 7-year-old sister, Venus, in April 1988 at a tennis clinic in Long Beach, Calif.“Their mother, Oracene, told me that day that she and her husband, Richard, taught the girls to play and they all came to the clinic from their home in Compton to pick up some pointers,” King said. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow,’ these girls have the ability to be the very best.”Former and current tennis players and others who knew a young Serena Williams shared with The New York Times their first impression of her before she became a worldwide star by winning 23 Grand Slam singles championships.The interviews have been edited for clarity and length.Alexandra StevensonFormer professional tennis player, ESPN U.S. Open analyst and Williams’s friend for more than 30 yearsIt was Morley Field in San Diego. My mom was a reporter covering a girl who was supposed to be a phenom at 10 years old. That was Venus Williams. I liked her name. I was 9. I wasn’t playing tournaments yet. This was a local San Diego tournament, and Venus was in the finals. It was easy to spot her father, Richard, and the family. They were the only Black people in a mostly white and Asian environment, standing off to the side.The younger girls were playing a hand game. They looked fun to me. I had been going to jump-rope school, and I had two ropes with me. I was hoping to find kids for double Dutch while my mom worked. Venus and Serena were with their older sisters Isha and Lyndrea.“Can you jump?” I asked Venus, the taller one with braids sticking out all over her head. The beads, I guess, would come later.“I can jump,” she said.Venus decided that Lyndrea and Isha would turn the ropes. Venus said, “She jumps first,” and pushed Serena into the ropes.I laughed and jumped in with Serena. We jumped and jumped. No one missed.That’s how it always was for us. We were always together giggling, telling stories.Pam ShriverFormer Grand Slam doubles championI was at one of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No to Drugs” events at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. Serena and Venus were 9 and 10 and playing in the charity event. Serena was little then, but then they came to Baltimore to play my charity event and played against the Ripken brothers.Venus, left, and Serena Williams, second from right, with President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, in 1990.AllsportWhen they came to Baltimore, I invited Venus and Richard and Serena to stay and help me prepare for my next tournament. Serena was a little young, but I remember her power at maybe 12 years old, and that has been the heart of her career. She had that live, powerful arm, and the first time I saw that serve, I could tell she had the smoothest, most efficient and powerful service motion ever.Rick MacciTennis coach who brought the Williams family to FloridaIt was in 1991 when I went to Compton, Calif. Richard called me. He knew I had worked with Jennifer Capriati. He told me I wanted to come to Compton to see his girls. He said, “I promise you won’t get shot.”We went to a park, and there were people playing basketball and people passed out on the grass when we got out of the van.Everyone said: “Hey, Venus. Hey, Meek,” because that is what they called Serena. Richard pulled out this old cart of old balls and said he liked using old dead balls because he wanted the girls running and digging them out of the ground.The first hour was a train wreck, and I didn’t see anything, but you don’t judge a book by its cover. We started playing competitive points. Me and Venus against Serena. Once we started that, the footwork got a lot better. There was a rage inside these two little kids once we kept score. They ran so fast they almost fell down. I said, “You’ve got the next female Michael Jordan,” referring to Venus, because she was older and better then. Richard said, “I got the next two.”Mary CarilloTennis commentator and 1977 French Open mixed doubles championMy first true memories of Serena’s greatness are from 1999, when she played dizzyingly good hardcourt tennis at Indian Wells, then Miami. The beads. Those beads were so damn cool. She looked locked in and fearless, beating Steffi Graf in the Indian Wells final and Martina Hingis in Miami. Then, she faced Venus in the Miami final. Venus got that one.It was an awkward, uncomfortable thing for them to play one another and for me to call, but by the end of that summer, at the U.S. Open, sweet Jesus. I’m not sure there could have been a tougher draw than the one she got through. Oh, and did I mention the beads?Williams announced the approaching end of her tennis career on the cover of the September issue of Vogue.Mike Nelson/Agence France-Presse-Getty ImagesMartin BlackmanFormer professional tennis player and the general manager of player development for the United States Tennis AssociationIt was a match against Irina Spirlea at the U.S. Open in 1998.The skill, the poise, the power and willingness to finish forward with swinging volleys or regular volleys at the net. And, of course, her serve. My impression was: “She’s going to be great!”Kevin Garnett15-time N.B.A. All-Star, Olympic gold medalist and tennis fanI first met her in 1995. I was on Oprah Winfrey’s show with Venus, a show about athletes with potential. I don’t think Serena was actually on the show, but I met her backstage and we spoke.Then when she started playing, I just remember my sisters and my cousins didn’t care at all about tennis, and then as soon as we all saw Serena, suddenly all they wanted to do was play.For me, still, every time I think of her, it’s her walking onto the court for the first time in that catsuit, the black Puma catsuit.John McEnroeSeven-time Grand Slam singles champion and tennis commentatorIt wasn’t totally accurately portrayed in the movie “King Richard.”I first met her when she was 8 years old, when she was brought to the court I was practicing on and then being told by my then-coach, Paul Cohen, and Richard Williams that her and Venus were going to be the two best players in the world. It was like, call me in 10 years, we’ll see what’s happening.I didn’t walk away in disgust, or refuse to see Serena. That’s all I’m saying. I was there. Saw them. Why would I walk away after being told that I’m going to see two kids, 8 and 9, that are going to be future No. 1s? Like, I refuse to see these kids? For what? Because I’m a hothead? But that’s not correct.Chris Evert18-time Grand Slam singles championShe played in my first celebrity tournament. I had a celebrity event that was the fight against drug abuse and prevention of drug abuse. And she and Venus were living down here in Florida.From left: Chris Evert, Serena Williams, Tracy Austin and Venus Williams at the 1992 Chris Evert Pro Celebrity Tennis Classic.Art Seitz/Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesThe first thing that strikes anybody is the power, the power in their games. The athleticism, the relaxed athleticism that they have and the way they move. Twelve and 13 years old, and they weren’t afraid to go to the net and volley. They had such an advanced game for that age. It was a different kind of a game than any juniors that I had ever seen. And they were very happy. Very happy. They were enjoying the attention, and they were enjoying going out there and playing tennis.Daniil MedvedevWorld No. 1 men’s tennis playerI’ve actually never hit with her, but I remember watching her on television as a kid. This was back when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were winning everything, and she was just like them. It seemed like she was absolutely crushing everyone she played.I know she lost matches. Everyone can lose matches, but I remember with Serena you had to watch from the beginning if you wanted to see her because it always seemed like it was 6-2, 6-2 and over in 45 minutes.

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      Serena Williams at the U.S. Open: How to Watch Her First Match

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      The 23-time Grand Slam champion could be playing her final professional tennis match on Monday at 7 p.m. at Arthur Ashe Stadium.Those who want to see Serena Williams play before she retires from tennis have one guaranteed shot at doing so.Williams is set to play Danka Kovinic in the first round of the tournament on Monday, and if Williams loses, it could be the last time she plays tennis professionally.Williams will play in Arthur Ashe Stadium at 7 p.m. on Monday. Fans may see her in person at Arthur Ashe Stadium, at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, or at home on television.On Saturday morning Williams was one of the first players on the practice court for an early hitting session.Here’s what you need to know ahead of Monday’s marquee match:How did we get here?When a hamstring injury forced Williams to retire in the first round of Wimbledon last year, many began to wonder whether the 23-time Grand Slam champion would return to the game she has dominated for the better part of more than two decades.In mid-June, Williams gave her fans a vague glimmer of hope that she would return to the game, when she posted a picture on Instagram of her shoes on grass.“SW at SW19,” Williams said in the caption, referring to the postal code of the All England Club, where Wimbledon is played. “It’s a date. 2022 See you there.”Without playing in any tuneup matches, Williams made it to Wimbledon, only to lose in the first round. Then after winning a first-round match in the National Bank Open in Toronto in early August, Williams appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine, and in an article she shared that she planned to step away from tennis after the U.S. Open.In the first-person essay, Williams said that she was “evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important,” adding that she planned to focus on her venture capital firm and grow her family, meaning a sibling for her daughter, Olympia, 4.Since then, she has lost in the second round in Toronto and in the first around at the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio.Want to see Williams live?You’ll need a ticket for a night session on Monday in Arthur Ashe Stadium. As of Friday afternoon, the cheapest seats available on resale for Monday night in Arthur Ashe were about $253. That’s in the nosebleeds.Those who want a better view of Williams will need to pay substantially more. Resale tickets in the 100s level of Arthur Ashe were selling for at least $850 as of Friday. Tickets in the lowest level of the stadium were selling for nearly $4,000.Do you just want a taste of the action?Consider buying a night session ticket for Louis Armstrong Stadium and watching the Williams match on a big screen set up in front of Arthur Ashe. The Armstrong tickets won’t get you into Arthur Ashe, but you’ll be free to roam around the grounds of the U.S. Open among like-minded tennis fans, who also want to soak up the atmosphere.Armstrong tickets on Friday were selling for about $110. There will be other night matches at Louis Armstrong on Monday, but not Williams against Kovinic.Rather just watch at home?Tune into ESPN on Monday to watch the match from the comfort of your home. (If you’re in Canada, tune into TSN.)If that’s not quite enough, consider making your own Honey Deuce, the official cocktail of the U.S. Open, and you’ll feel like you’re at the tournament. (Find the recipe here.)Who is Williams playing?Williams will take on Kovinic, a 27-year-old from Montenegro, who is ranked No. 80 in the world. The two have never played each other.Kovinic has had a decent year, reaching the third round of the Australian Open and the French Open. At the Australian Open, Kovinic defeated Emma Raducanu, the reigning U.S. Open champion, in three sets.At U.S. Open media day on Friday, Raducanu was asked about her match against Kovinic, and Raducanu said that it was a match she won’t forget.“I don’t know how it ended up so close,” Raducanu said. “She was really, really solid, was staying with you, counterpunching. Then after you drop one after a long rally, then she would attack. She’s happy to run, happy to rally.”What happens if Williams wins in the first round?If Williams wins, those who missed a chance to see her on Monday will get another chance in the second round of the tournament, which starts on Wednesday for women’s singles. Williams would likely play another night match in Arthur Ashe Stadium.In the second round, she would face the winner of Anett Kontaveit and Jaqueline Cristian. Kontaveit, the No. 2 in the world, is favored to win her match and would be a difficult opponent for Williams.How far can Williams go in the U.S. Open?Pam Shriver, an ESPN commentator, said it will largely depend on her health. Complicating that will be the number of adept players in the women’s draw, Shriver said.“It’s hard for me right now to see her making a run into the second week,” Shriver said. “But it’s still fun to dream, and so until a dream is no longer possible, I’m choosing to still have it as a dream. It would be like the greatest sports story ever.”Who else plays on Monday night?When the Williams and Kovinic match is over, there’s still more tennis scheduled. After that match, Arthur Ashe will host the first round men’s singles match between Australians Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis.The match will be special for them because they’ve played doubles matches together over the years. Plus, any time Kyrgios is on court, fans can count on seeing one of his classic between-the-legs shots. More