When Serena Williams is on the court, time stops. You feel the power of her serve, every shot inches you closer to the TV and you celebrate each won point with a little more gusto than the last.
When she’s serving her opponent off the court, you feel like you could run through a wall after each ace. Watching her play is magical, electric. She’s the type of athlete who can (and rightfully so) command the attention of sports fans everywhere and get them to drop everything else to tune in. I’ll wake up at any hour to watch her play.
To the heartbreak of countless fans, 40-year-old Serena, the greatest to ever play the game, is expected to close her tennis career with the 2022 U.S. Open, after more than 1,000 career singles matches, 73 singles titles, 23 Grand Slam trophies and more than a quarter century as a pro.
“There’s still a little left in me,” she cheekily said Wednesday after beating the No. 2 player in the world, Anett Kontaveit, to advance to the third round Friday against Ajla Tomljanovic.
But there’s one spectacular Serena victory that floods my mind anytime her dominance is mentioned. Sure, there is an abundance of her matches that exemplify the unparalleled player she is, tremendous longevity included. Maybe you’re thinking of her first U.S. Open (and Grand Slam) win at 17 in 1999, or her 2013 French Open win after an 11-year drought, or when she won the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant against older sister Venus — a legend in her own right who jokingly said it was unfairly two against one.
There’s an argument to be made for many of them. That’s what happens when you’re the greatest tennis player of all time and one of the best athletes in history. But the Serena match regularly conjured in my memory when I think of her strength on the court — and one that is undeniably one of her best career performances — wasn’t actually a Grand Slam or in a tournament perennially on the calendar.
It was the unforgettable 2012 London Olympics final. Tennis at the Olympics doesn’t quite carry the same umph as other sports when you have four Grand Slams on the calendar each year. But that final, that victory, was special to Serena and perfectly epitomized her strength and power, the kind of champion she is and how her adoring fans will remember her.
Lopsided, jaw-dropping, truly unbelievable, it was a quintessential Serena match amid one of several peaks in her career — and it took her just 62 minutes to take…
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