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All the celebrity tributes and voice-over videos were artificial, rubbish, compared to the crowd cheering for Serena Williams, the roaring cascades of applause that rained down on Arthur Ashe Stadium. It came in full-throated cascades, for the greatest women’s tennis player in history, for the bravura thrust of her game and the breadth of her now-complete dominance. Beneath the shouting and stomping were so many feelings that could hardly be put into words as the 40-year-old took one last turn and waved before heading out.
It had been a long journey, sometimes controversial and with multiple obstacles, from a silly child to an all-time champion, who with his presence radicalized one of the whitest and hardest sports. He won his first US Open title at age 17 in 1999, the start of a modern record 23 Grand Slam titles. He found the bottom of his competitive heart and guts on Friday night when, just three weeks shy of his 41st birthday, he battled with trademark ferocity for three sets and killed five match points with a string of still-huge breaks. that tired to the tennis ball before losing. to Ajla Tomljanovic, 7-5, 6-7 (7-4), 6-1, in what was almost certainly her last major championship match. Just two days earlier, she had upset world No. 2 Anett Kontaveit.
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“I tried,” he said simply afterwards.
No one in the history of the game, perhaps no game, has tried harder or for longer.
“I mean, there’s so much to remember. Like the fight. I’m a fighter. I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like I’ve really brought something, and contributed something, to tennis. The different looks, the fist pumps, the intensity just crazy. Obviously, I think passion is a very good word.”
It was such a complicated career spanning 27 years that it was hard to fathom. “Her legacy is so vast, to the point where you can’t even describe it in words,” said Naomi Osaka, her rival and friend.
Its impact could be illustrated in part by two bracketed images. On August 9, Williams announced her impending retirement, or “evolution,” as she termed it less painfully, by posing majestically on the cover of Vogue magazine’s September issue in a royal blue dress with a train . September twenty-fourth ago, Williams’ year 1999, Vogue’s “cover girl” for that month was Gwyneth Paltrow, a typically thin actress. Williams would redefine female beauty with a new template of strength while challenging the traditional restrictions of tennis and opening it up to a more diverse audience. She has appeared in Vogue four times, the first black athlete to appear in its pages. It was no trivial achievement that a strong black athlete made the glossy magazine her home organ. Not to mention a showcase for the accessories she so delightedly put on her muscle, right down to the diamond crusts on her boxer briefs.
“I feel grateful to be able to have this impact,” she said earlier in the tournament. “I never thought I would have this impact, ever. I was just a girl trying to play tennis at a time when I could make that impact and be a voice. It was so authentic because I do what I do. And I do it authentically [as] me I think people could really relate to that.”
Williams’ career on and off the court was an exploration of power: the enormous clearance of her strokes was accompanied by control, a deep precision that allowed her to brush the lines. Through the ebbs and flows of victories, he was unapologetic about his commanding temper and tough playing and voice and his origins in the public, broken and machine-gunned courts of Compton, California. “I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t go through, or go through, what I went through,” he said at Wimbledon at the beginning of the summer. “I love who I am. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Anything he did “wrong” or out of line with tennis tradition was inevitably magnified, criticized or scrutinized. But instead of being coy about it, she did it right and made huge statements, about body image, ideas about what tennis clothes could look like, and how hard a woman could compete. Normally, the tennis world had placed subtle pressures on women to keep their ambitions and their voices within a certain range, to suppress. It was Williams who imposed her own pressure on tennis with the power of her competitive personality. He took all the advantages out of the tennis world and none of the disadvantages. He avoided the burnout, the disenchantment, the overplaying injuries that plague most young champions.
And ultimately, she became not only the longest-lasting champion of the modern era, but also the most revered. Over the past week, Oprah and Queen Latifah have recognized her, but she was buoyed by a crowd noise of a volume and quality of affection that had not been felt for any other champion. Not even the longest tennis watchers had heard such ovations. “That’s not tennis noise,” commented commentator Mary Carillo.
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Williams could feel the receptions in his chest, he said. His first-round opponent, Danka Kovinic, said: “At some points during the match, I couldn’t feel my shots.”
As Williams battled Tomljanovic, the crescendo rose and rose. In a game in the second set, he forced his opponent to fight for a full 15 minutes just to hold his serve. When Williams took this set, she let out a guttural scream of her own, so intense it bent her over.
But in a late-game siege — one that lasted 22 points — as the game entered the third hour, he alternated between his slam dunks and drives to the net, shots that fell like uppercuts, with misses tired arms
The final shot was a tired forehand that clipped the white net tape. And suddenly it was done.
Afterwards, in an interview on the court, while thanking his family and friends, he cried in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. “These are happy tears, I guess,” she said. “I do not know.”
And then she thanked that crowd, who had finally learned to appreciate her. “I’m thankful to everyone who said ‘Go Serena’ in their life because you got me here,” she said.