Serena Williams was struggling. After cruising through the 2012 US Open draw, she trailed Victoria Azarenka 3-5 in the third set of the championship match. Azarenka, then the top-ranked player in the world, accomplished at Flushing Meadows what no other player had been able to do thus far that year. She exhausted Williams, frustrated her into forehand errors, and neutralized her most unstoppable weapon: Williams’ serve, possibly the best shot in the history of women’s tennis.
Even though Williams heroically closed the margin to 5-4 on serve without producing an ace, Azarenka still held the title. To hear Williams tell it, she was so exhausted and done that she had already begun crafting a speech for second place in her brain. When Azarenka jumped out to a 40-love lead on triple championship point, it appeared that the Arthur Ashe Stadium audience would soon hear it. But something within her would not permit her to back down.
When Azarenka narrowly missed a deep crosscourt forehand with her forehand, her inner strength was shown. It shone through her resolute point construction, tenacious defense, and insatiable desire for conflict. Williams swept 16 of the final 22 games to secure a 7-5 lead in the third set and her fourth US Open championship.
This historic victory in Queens, the first final in 17 years to go to three sets, did more than bolstering Williams’ argument for being the greatest tennis player of all time. With her 15th career singles slam, she became the first woman since Martina Navratilova to win a major tournament after the age of 30, and the only woman except for Venus Williams and Steffi Graf to win Wimbledon, Olympic gold, and the US Open in the same year. It earned her the moniker of the queen of comebacks. Even though technically speaking, it seemed to be a misnomer.
There is a valid reason why Williams has won 37 grand slam titles. For the majority of her 27 years on the professional tour, she was the overwhelming favorite. While the Big Three of men’s tennis faced constant challenges from themselves and the occasional challenger, Williams has dominated three generations of players.
She did not merely initiate the present era of “Big Babe” tennis. She was the most treacherous of all, a swift and supple final boss who could outhit everyone on tour. Six of her 23 career major singles titles were won without losing a set. What is her most frequent score during that run? 6-1.
She has never dropped more than 29 games on her way to a major victory. When Williams asserts, as she frequently has throughout her career, that only she can beat herself, it’s surprising that anyone ever considered arguing the issue. It is rather uncommon for an opponent to establish otherwise. However, they did occur.
If Serena had ever been intimidated by an opponent, it was Venus. She was the player who set the standard, led the way, and is still traveling in her forties, twenty years after disclosing that she has Sjogren’s Syndrome. Over the course of their improbable careers, they’ve met thirty-one times, with each encounter being a tense one.
A third of these contests have reached the third set. Initially, the older sister prevailed, preventing Serena from winning trophies in 1998 at Melbourne, 2000 at the All England Club, and 2001 at Flushing Meadows. The tide began to turn in 2002. At the French Open that year, Serena defeated Jennifer Capriati in three sets before defeating Venus in the final. A few weeks later, in an all-sisters Wimbledon final, Serena escaped the first-set tiebreaker en route to victory.
Between her historic breakthrough on grass and her battle with Azarenka, Williams has given ample reason to never bet against her when she is down. In the 2003 Australian Open semi-final against top-tier Kim Clijsters, Serena overcame two match points to win in three sets and then defeated Venus in the finals to complete the Serena Slam (for the first time).
In the 2005 Australian Open semifinals, Williams transformed a certain straight-set victory for Maria Sharapova into a three-set victory, establishing the tone for their lopsided rivalry.
After dropping a first-set tiebreaker in the 2009 Wimbledon final to Elena Dementieva – who had defeated Williams in three of four previous meetings, most recently in the quarterfinals of the 2008 Beijing Olympics – Williams roared back and saved a third-set match point en route to ending a six-year Wimbledon title drought. In the 2013 French Open final against Svetlana Kuznetsova, Williams battled back from a near shutout in the first set to win the next two.
While that triumph, the second of Williams’s three major championships on clay, was a demonstration of grit that transcended clay, the Comeback Queen was not formally proclaimed until Williams won the 2012 US Open.
She had not only defeated Azarenka, but also established herself as tennis’ indisputable champion after a year of recovery from a freak, near-fatal accident that left her with a hematoma and pulmonary embolism and wondering if she could ever regain her top form, let alone return to the sport at all.
In a sense, this is what makes Williams’s declared intention to retire so difficultly to accept. She has overcome obstinate opponents like Azarenka (whose 5-18 record versus Williams is better than it appears), celebrity breakups, the murder of her older sister Tunde, and an almost fatal C-section childbirth. Even if she may be ready to say goodbye, anyone who has observed her for this long would be a fool to write her off entirely.
