Serena Williams’ loss at Australian Open leaves her legacy firm yet still unfinished | Opinion
She wore this black designer T-shirt the other day with her name in bright white block letters — except the last four letters of her surname were intentionally gray and barely visible.
So SERENA WILL is what you saw.
It looked a declaration. A promise she intends to keep.
But today it is fair, again, to ask:
Will she?
Serena Williams, iconic athlete and tennis great, aimed for a record-tying 24th career major singles title at this month’s Australian Open. She faced young rival Naomi Osaka in a semifinal match Thursday in Melbourne, one of the children she raised as she grew the sport. Naomi was not yet born when her idol turned pro in 1995, and had not quite turned 2 when Serena won her first major, a U.S. Open, in 1999.
“She’s Serena,” said Osaka when the semifinal pairing was set. “I’m intimidated when I see her on the other side of the court.”
The outset of the match (played late last night, U.S. Eastern) went like that. An early service-break put Serena in command, 2-0. But it unraveled from there for the woman chasing history, as Osaka roared back to win, 6-3, 6-4.
Naomi now leads her mentor 3-1 and will be a huge to win it all on Saturday, because in the final she’ll face a much lower-ranked, lower-seeded woman in Jennifer Brady.
No matter how the rest of the week played out, Serena bows to no man (no, not even Tom Brady) and to no woman if the conversation turns to sports G.O.A.T.: Greatest Of All Time.
No matter how many athletes are under your consideration, how many seats are at that table, save a place for Serena. Her career resume demands it. Like Brady, so does her age-defying longevity. Unlike Brady, who has a team around him, such as the Tampa Bay defense that just helped hand him a seventh Super Bowl ring, Serena in her arena is all alone.
While we’re at it, include Serena with Dwyane Wade and Dan Marino, please, if the conversation is South Florida’s all-time sports G.O.A.T., considering she was raised in Palm Beach Gardens, calls the Miami Open her home tournament (she has won it eight times), and even owns a small piece of the Miami Dolphins along with older sister Venus, herself a seven-time majors winner.
For all that, her’s remains a legacy firm yet unfinished.
Serena’s 23 majors already are the most, by man or woman, in the sport’s Open Era. (One of them she won while pregnant with her daughter, Alexis, in 2017). Her next major would tie Margaret Court for the all-time record and two more would see her alone on the mountaintop.
But will those happen? There is poignancy as we watch.
She is making this late climb at age 39.
In a sport where many of the women in her way now are nearly old enough to be her daughters.
I would not bet on Tiger Woods, at age 45, winning the three moire majors he needs to tie Jack Nicklaus’ all-time record in golf. I would not bet against Serena winning two more to surpass Court, but the odds are becoming longer.
Serena seemed to be enjoying a second wind, a rebirth of sorts, at the Aussie Open, playing her best tennis in years, certainly post-motherhood, with her fitness and court movement seeming its best in years.
In one nearly surreal winning point in her quarterfinal match over Simona Halep, Serena returned six consecutive shots outstretched with lunging backhands and forehands, covering the entire court side to side, until finally Halep hit into the net and stood looking at her opponent, 10 years older, as if in disbelief.
Of that sequence, Serena joked after the match that she had not been able to run down shots like that “since 1926.”
Says ESPN tennis analyst Pam Shriver: “Her overall fitness improvement is the biggest difference. Serena is playing much better defense, extending rallies. The past couple of years, post-maternity leave, she was unable to play enough defense.”
Against Osaka, though, the U.S.-residing Japanese citizen ranked No. 3 in the world, she faced a much younger foe capable of matching her cannon-shot groundstrokes and court coverage.
Serena left the court looking 39, and her emotional wave to the limited crowd, one hand over her heart, felt like goodbye to the ESPN announcers calling the match.
After the match she would not address her future and left the news conference early, and in tears.
Serena last won a major at the 2017 Australian, making this the longest drought of her career. She has been in a major final but denied five times since now, twice by Osaka including at the 2018 U.S. Open final.
It had begun to seem she might never get that record-tying 24th major and make history, but her run at this Australian Open had seen her game revitalized and given hope that the designer T-shirt she’s been wearing may yet prove prophetic:
SERENA WILL
But will she? History awaits the answer.
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 11:39 AM.
