Not wanting to go quietly, Williams fended off five match points to extend the three-plus hours as some spectators stood to watch, camera phones at the ready. No one—except Tomljanovic, of course—wanted this to end. That came on Tomljanović’s sixth chance, when Williams scored a shot. Williams turns 41 this month and recently told the world she was ready to start “evolving” away from her playing days — she expressed her distaste for the word “retirement” — and while she remained deliberately vague about whether she would definitely this appearance at Flushing Meadows would represent her last tournament, everyone assumed it would be. WATCHES | Serena Williams goes down swinging at the US Open:
Serena goes down swinging at the US Open in the final match of her career
Tennis legend Serena Williams fought hard for more than three hours but fell to Ajla Tomljanović 7-5, 6-7, 6-1. He was treated like that on Friday night, and Williams cried in court soon after. Asked if she might reconsider, she replied: “I don’t think so, but you never know.” If this was indeed her last streak, she took her fans on a thrilling minute-by-minute ride on the hard-court tournament, home to half a dozen of her 23 Grand Slam championships. The first came in 1999 in New York, when Williams was just 17 years old. But he fell to Tomljanović, a 29-year-old Australian ranked 46th. Williams led in every set, including the last, in which she led 1-0 before losing the last six games. At one point in the second set, Williams’ legs got tangled and she fell to the court, dropping her racket. He finished with 51 errors, 21 more than Tomljanović. Williams let a 5-3 lead slip away in the first set. She did a similar thing in the second, giving away 4-0 and 5-2 leads, and requiring five set points to finally put it in her pocket. From 4 all in the tiebreak, meaning Williams was three points away from defeat, she hit a 117mph ace, hit a forehand winner to cap a 20-stroke exchange, then saw Tomljanovic push away a for Momentum appeared to be on Williams’ side. But he couldn’t make the kind of comeback he’s made 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, husband and older sister Venus, seven times. great champion. “I wouldn’t be Serena if it wasn’t for Aphrodite. So thank you, Aphrodite,” she said. “She’s the only reason Serena Williams ever existed.”
