Never doubt greatness.
Serena Williams had given all she could and even still it looked like it may not be enough, taking the opening set against Anett Kontaveit before dropping the second 2-6.
But she is not a 23-time Grand Slam-winning champion for no reason and like all champions do, Williams stepped up in the face of adversity to take the third set (6-2) and match.
The boisterous crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium rode every point and will continue to do so as Williams’ US Open fairytale stays alive for another day.
Williams will face Australian Ajla Tomljanovic, who defeated Evgeniya Rodina earlier in the day, in the third round.
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“It’s no rush here,” Williams said in her post-match interview.
“I’m just loving this crowd. Oh my goodness, it’s really fantastic. There’s still a little left in me, we’ll see.”
While some may have been surprised to see Williams take down the World No. 2, it was no shock for the 40-year-old, who knows exactly what she is capable of.
“I’m a pretty good player,” she said, laughing.
“This is what I do best. I love a challenge and rising to the challenge. I haven’t played many matches but I’ve been practising really well and my last few matches it just wasn’t coming together and I was thinking this wasn’t me. The last couple of matches here in New York it has come together.”
It did not all go to plan for Williams on Thursday though, dropping the second set as Kontaveit really started to gain control heading into the third.
“Honestly after I lost the second set I thought: ‘Oh my goodness. I’ve got to give my best effort because this could be it’… really I just wanted to keep trying and see what I could do and I just did my best,” Williams said.
In her first-person essay for Vogue a few weeks ago, Williams said she was not retiring but “evolving”.
“I have never liked the word retirement,” Williams wrote.
“It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution.”
So many of the fundamentals of Williams’ game may still be there but speaking post-match, she said there is a key difference to her mental approach at Flushing Meadows this year.
Perhaps part of that evolution, and something that makes her an even more dangerous competitor.
“I’m super competitive,” she said.
“Honestly, I’m just looking at it as a bonus. I don’t have anything to prove. I don’t have anything to win. I have absolutely nothing to lose. Honestly I’ve never got to play like this since ‘98 really. I’ve had an X on my back since ‘99.
“It’s kind of fun and I enjoy just coming out and enjoying it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do that.”
Kontaveit may be World No. 2 but her best result in a major championship is a single quarter-final appearance at the 2020 Australian Open and Williams showed her experience early.
The 40-year-old made a statement, winning 25 of 28 first serve points and finishing with an ace to take the first set 7-6 (4) in a tiebreak.
Kontaveit though fired eight early winners and went up 3-0 in the second set to quiet the crowd.
The World No. 2 then double faulted to put Williams in a position to break back and she did just that and was in a strong position to hold serve, up 40-0.
Instead, Williams was broken again and while she was leaving everything she had out on the court, it looked like even that would not be enough.
But there was still plenty of fight left in Williams, who broke Kontaveit to go up 2-0 in the third set and she did not look back from that point, taking the set 6-2.
Williams, who is playing in what is expected to be her final tournament, opened with a straight sets first round win over Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic, the world number 80.
Williams has signalled that this year’s US Open will be her last tournament as a professional, revealing in a Vogue magazine essay this month that the “countdown” to retirement had begun.
But the 40-year-old demurred when invited to confirm definitively that she would be retiring after her US Open campaign began with a win.
“I have been pretty vague about it, right? I’m going to stay vague because you never know,” Williams said with a smile.
She also admitted that the intoxicating atmosphere surrounding Tuesday’s first round match — which felt more like a rock concert than a sporting contest — would be hard to walk away from.
“It’s extremely difficult still because I absolutely love being out there,” she said.
