Legendary career of Serena Williams comes to an end with third round loss

Serena Williams lost what is expected to be the last match of her transcendent tennis career Friday night, eliminated from the U.S. Open in the third round by Ajla Tomljanovic 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-1 before an electric crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Unwilling to go quietly, Williams staved off five match points to prolong the three-hours-plus proceedings, as some spectators stood to watch, camera phones at the ready. No one – save, of course, Tomljanovic – wanted this to end.

It did on Tomljanovic’s sixth chance, when Williams netted a shot.

Williams 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 has remained purposely vague about whether this appearance at Flushing Meadows definitely would represent her final tournament, everyone assumes it will be.

It was treated that way Friday night, and Williams cried on court immediately afterward. Asked whether she might reconsider, she replied: “I don’t think so, but you never know.”

Dear Serena…

A letter from Tennis #ThankYouSerena | @AustralianOpen | @rolandgarros | @Wimbledon | @usopen pic.twitter.com/FVtVORpVvn

— wta (@WTA) September 3, 2022

If this was, indeed, the last hurrah, she took her fans on a thrill-a-minute throwback ride at the hard-court tournament that was the site of a half-dozen of her 23 Grand Slam championships. The first came in 1999 in New York, when Williams was just 17.

But she faltered against Tomljanovic, a 29-year-old Australian who is ranked 46th.

Williams gave away leads in each set, including the last, in which she was up 1-0 before dropping the final six games.

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 comeback she did so many times 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 her parents, her husband, and her older sister, Venus, a seven-time major champion.

“I wouldn’t be Serena if there wasn’t Venus. So thank you, Venus,” she said. “She’s the only reason that Serena Williams ever existed.”

Canadians Andreescu, Marino eliminated

Former U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu was eliminated with a 6-3, 6-2 straight sets loss to France’s Caroline Garcia on Friday night.

The Mississauga, Ont., native kept it close early when she tied things up at 2-2 in the opening set, capped by a Garcia backhand forced error.

Garcia then went on to win four of the next five games to win the set, with three of her four points in Game 9 coming from errors on Andreescu’s part.

In the second set, Andreescu was able to tie it up early at 1-1, but Garcia won the next four games before the 2019 champion won another.

Garcia closed the match behind consecutive errors from Andreescu.

In women’s doubles second-round action, fifth seeds Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and Giuliana Olmos of Mexico defeated American tandem Whitney Osuigwe and Hailey Baptiste 6-1, 6-4.

Dabrowski and Olmos broke on four of 10 opportunities, and won 77 per cent of first-serve points. The duo will next play the winner between ninth seeds Asia Muhammad and Ena Shibahara and American duo Catherine Harrison and Ingrid Neel.

Earlier on Friday, Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino was eliminated after a 6-2, 6-4 loss to China’s Zhang Shuai in third-round singles action.

Marino was up 2-1 in the first set before Zhang won the next five games. Zhang broke to love in Game 7 to go up 5-2, then converted her first set point on serve in the deciding game.

Zhang continued her winning streak, taking an early break and going up 2-0 in the second set. She held serve the rest of the way and converted her first match point to end the contest in one hour three minutes.

Zhang did not face break point, and broke Marino three times on eight chances.

Marino was competing in the third round of a Grand Slam for just the second time in her career, and first since the 2011 French Open.