Serena Williams won her first-round match in the U.S. Open over Danka Kovinić Monday night and was sent off to a blissful retirement.
Or so it seemed. There were tributes on court from CBS News personality Gayle King and tennis great Billie Jean King, a video highlight reel narrated by Oprah Winfrey and a card stunt from fans that spelled out “We Love Serena” with a heart emoji.
It was one of the sweetest goodbyes you’ll ever see in professional sports, befitting a champion who dominated her sport and helped change tennis for good.
The only problem is that Williams’ career is not over, at least not yet.
She’ll be back in action Wednesday against No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia, a much more difficult match that very well could be Williams’ swan song.
If Williams loses Wednesday, I assume we’ll have another long goodbye, more tributes and video highlights and one last ovation from the adoring crowd before a farewell speech. At least we have a template for what to expect so we can have some Kleenex handy for the real deal.
Hopefully she moves on and creates anticipation for the perfect ending, like Ted Williams hitting his epic home run in his final at-bat at Fenway Park, a moment that inspired John Updike’s classic essay.
But if the U.S. Open treats every match like it did Monday’s, I’m afraid Serena Fatigue could quickly set in. It’s still a Grand Slam tournament, not a miniseries about Williams.
When Williams revealed in Vogue Magazine the U.S. Open would be her last hurrah, you knew it would bring out the warm and fuzzies, much like the end of the career of any great athlete who chooses to announce it beforehand instead of simply walking off into the sunset after his or her final performance.
In this age is that even possible?
Williams assuredly deserves the fanfare, though I’d argue the post-match celebration of her career Monday night was premature. It was almost as if they were ready for her to lose and had to get the celebration in just in case. Only recently did we endure the over-the-top tributes to Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady after his retirement only for Brady unretire and force us to go through it all over again at a date yet to be determined.
The Serena goodbye will be well-scripted to ensure maximum media exposure, just as the Brady farewells were already in the can and ready to air the second he called it quits.
This is the world we live in. Bigger is better.
During Monday’s ESPN telecast, a tweet from LeBron James was displayed on the screen that read: ”Keep that serve going,” followed by a goat emoji. We were informed it was one G.O.A.T. giving encouragement to another G.O.A.T.
That sentiment was expressed as it was a well known fact both James and Williams had been anointed the “greatest of all time,” even as many believe Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player ever and it could be argued Steffi Graf or Martina Navratilova was the greatest women’s tennis player.
