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| Photo Credit: AP. |
NEW YORK (AP) — Leave it to Serena Williams to not want to go quietly, to not want this match, this trip to the U.S. Open, this transcendent career of hers, to really, truly end.
Right down
to what were, barring a change of heart, the final minutes of her
quarter-century of excellence on the tennis court, and an unbending
unwillingness to be told what wasn’t possible, Williams tried to mount one last
classic comeback, earn one last vintage victory, with fans on their feet in a
full Arthur Ashe Stadium, cellphone cameras at the ready.
The 23-time
Grand Slam champion staved off five match points to prolong the
three-hours-plus proceedings, but could not do more, and was eliminated from
the U.S. Open in the third round by Ajla Tomljanovic 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-1 on
Friday night in what is expected to be her final contest.
“I’ve been
down before. ... I don’t really give up,” Williams said. “In my career, I’ve
never given up. In matches, I don’t give up. Definitely wasn’t giving up
tonight.”
She turns 41
this month and recently told the world that she is ready to start “evolving”
away from her playing days — she expressed distaste for the word “retirement” —
and while she remained purposely vague about whether this appearance at
Flushing Meadows definitely would represent her last hurrah, everyone assumed
it will be.
“It’s been the most incredible ride and
journey I’ve ever been on in my life,” Williams said, tears streaming down her
cheeks shortly after one final shot landed in the net. “I’m so grateful to
every single person that’s ever said, ‘Go, Serena!’ in their life.”
Asked during
an on-court interview whether she might reconsider walking away, Williams
replied: “I don’t think so, but you never know.”
A little
later, pressed on the same topic at her post-match news conference, Williams
joked, “I always did love Australia,” the country that hosts the next Grand
Slam tournament in January.
With two
victories in singles this week, including over the No. 2 player in the world,
Anett Kontaveit, on Wednesday, Williams took her fans on a thrill-a-minute
throwback trip at the hard-court tournament that was the site of a half-dozen
of her championships.
The first
came in 1999 in New York, when Williams was a teen. Now she’s married and a
mother; her daughter, Olympia, turned 5 on Thursday.
“Clearly,
I’m still capable. ... (But) I’m ready to be a mom, explore a different version
of Serena,” she said. “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.”
Williams
gave away leads in each set, including the last, in which she was up 1-0 before
dropping the final six games.
Tomljanovic
is unabashedly a fan of Williams, having growing up watching her play on TV.
“I’m feeling
really sorry, just because I love Serena just as much as you guys do. And what
she’s done for me, for the sport of tennis, is incredible,” said Tomljanovic,
who has never been past the quarterfinals at any major. “This is a surreal
moment for me.”
Then,
drawing laughs, Tomljanovic added: “I just thought she would beat me. ... She’s
Serena. That’s that’s just who she is: She’s the greatest of all time. Period.”
Asked what
she planned to do on the first day of the rest of her life Saturday, Williams
said she’d rest, spend time with Olympia and then added: “I’m definitely
probably going to be karaoke-ing.”
Her
performance with her racket Friday showed grit and featured some terrific
serving, but it was not perfect.
On one point
in the second set, Williams’ feet got tangled and she fell to the court,
dropping her racket. She finished with 51 unforced errors, 21 more than
Tomljanovic.
Williams let
a 5-3 lead vanish in the first set. She did something similar in the second,
giving away edges of 4-0 and 5-2, and requiring five set points to finally put
that one in her pocket. From 4-all in the tiebreaker, meaning Williams was
three points from defeat, she pounded a 117 mph ace, hit a forehand winner to
cap a 20-stroke exchange, then watched Tomljanovic push a forehand long.
Momentum
appeared to be on Williams’ side. But she could not pull off the sort of
never-admit-defeat triumph she did so often over the years.
“Oh, my God,
thank you so much. You guys were amazing today. I tried,” Williams told the
audience, hands on her hips, before mentioning, among others, her parents and
her older sister, Venus, a seven-time major champion who is 42.
“I wouldn’t
be Serena if there wasn’t Venus. So thank you, Venus,” Williams said. “She’s
the only reason that Serena Williams ever existed.”
They started
in tennis as kids in Compton, California, coached by their father, Richard, who
taught himself about the sport after watching on television while a player
received a winner’s check. He was the central figure in the Oscar-winning film
“King Richard,” produced by his daughters.
When
Tomljanovic broke to go up 6-5 as part of a four-game run to take the opening
set, one person in her guest box rose to applaud — and he was pretty much on
his own.
Otherwise,
folks applauded when Tomljanovic double-faulted, generally considered a faux
pas for tennis crowds.
They got
loud in the middle of lengthy exchanges, also frowned upon.
They offered
sympathetic sounds of “Awwwwww” when Williams flubbed a shot, and leapt out of
their seats when she did something they found extraordinary. A rather routine
service break was cause for a standing ovation.
Tomljanovic
draped a blue-and-white U.S. Open towel over her head at changeovers, shielding
herself from the noise and distractions.
“Just really
blocked it out as much as I could. It did get to me a few times, internally. I
mean, I didn’t take it personally because, I mean, I would be cheering for
Serena, too, if I wasn’t playing her,” Tomljanovic said. “But it was definitely
not easy.”
After
Williams struck a swinging backhand volley winner to take a 4-0 lead in the
second set, her play improving with every passing moment, the reaction was earsplitting.
Billie Jean King, a Hall of Famer with 39 total Grand Slam titles across
singles, doubles and mixed doubles, raised her cellphone to capture the scene.
“You’re
everywhere!” yelled Williams’ husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, from a
courtside guest box that also contained power couple Ciara and Russell Wilson.
When
Williams drove two consecutive forehand winners to lead 5-2 in the second set,
she screamed and leaned forward after each.
She could
not sustain that level.
Williams
entered the night having won 19 times in a row in the U.S. Open’s third round
of singles competition, including reaching at least the semifinals in her most
recent 11 appearances in New York.
Talk about a
full-circle moment: The only other third-round loss she’s ever had at Flushing
Meadows (she is 42-0 in the first and second rounds) came in 1998, the year
Williams made her tournament debut at age 16.
She would
win her first major trophy 12 months later at the U.S. Open. And now she said
goodbye in that same stadium.
“It’s been a
long time. I’ve been playing tennis my whole life,” Williams said Friday night,
after performing one last twirl-and-wave move usually reserved for victories.
“It is a little soon, but I’m also happy because, I mean, this is what I
wanted, what I want.”
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