Serena Williams’s First-Round U.S. Open Match: U.S. Open: Serena Williams Highlights Round 1 With a Win (Published 2022) (2024)

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Serena Williams won her first round U.S. Open match after some early jitters.

This win came just a few weeks after she announced that she planned to step away from tennis after the U.S. Open to focus on having another child and on her business interests, though she was not shy about showing ambivalence about her decision.

“I absolutely love being out there,” Williams said after the win. “The more tournaments I play, the more I feel I can belong out there.”

Assuming she follows through with her plans to stop playing, Monday night’s win means the end of one of the most successful and influential careers in sports history won’t arrive until the second round of the U.S. Open, or even later. Williams will have a tougher test Wednesday against No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia, whom she has never faced. But Kontaveit has struggled of late, especially after a bout with Covid earlier in the year.

Throughout the match, and especially in the final games as Williams bulldozed across the line, there were glimpses of the power and athleticism that had made Williams a boundary-breaking force that changed both her sport and women’s athleticism.

And on a heavy, late-summer New York evening, on the court where she captured her first Grand Slam singles title in 1999, it was enough to topple Kovinic, the sort of player Williams has rolled over in maybe an hour in so many early-round matches in so many other Grand Slams. Williams was shaky and rusty at the start, double-faulting and netting easy ground strokes, but she got better as the night wore on and ultimately dictated how the match was played and how it finished.

It may have just been one more first-round match that, if she had lost it, would have surprised few. No one had expected much from Williams coming into this tournament. Monday night’s match seemed to be as much of a gift for the boldfaced names and everyone else at Arthur Ashe Stadium as it was a chance for Williams to blast some final serves and winners, no matter what the numbers on the scoreboard said when it was over.

Queen Latifah was there, and so was President Bill Clinton, Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor, and Katie Couric, and Matt Damon, and Hugh Jackman, and Naomi Osaka, who just the other day had called Williams the biggest force in the sport, and that included the superstar male group of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Williams also plans to play in the doubles competition with her sister Venus, herself a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion, but Monday was always going to be Serena Williams’s valedictory, or the start of it, a night that, win-or-lose, would be a celebration. Williams made sure to show up for the party, and so did her daughter, Olympia, 4, who wore a matching outfit with her hair in beads evoking a young Serena, and nearly stole the show.

Williams has endured a 27-year roller coaster filled with long stretches of near invincibility as well as injury-plagued years that made it seem like this night might have occurred long ago.

She has collected armfuls of championship trophies — and came so close to several more in the final phase of her career — and also endured the headline-grabbing controversies that followed her run-ins with tennis officials on the court where she played Monday night.

For Williams, who turns 41 in four weeks and is arguably the greatest player of all time, a loss to Kovinic, the 80th-ranked player in the world, was not the way she wanted to wave goodbye to her singles career.

She has been a shadow of her former self this summer, during the singles matches that are serving as her coda after nearly a year away from the game she has loved and dedicated her life to. The impromptu farewell began in earnest at Wimbledon, made stops in Toronto and Ohio and now continues in New York at the U.S. Open for at least one more singles match, and a doubles match.

It was Tony Godsick, the longtime agent for Federer, another champion struggling to figure out what his goodbye should look like, who said earlier this summer that going out gracefully doesn’t require lifting a championship trophy.

It means going out on one’s own terms, not with an injury, like the torn hamstring that sent Williams off the court in tears at Wimbledon in 2021, but with a final chance to compete and soak in the roars from the crowd.

“That atmosphere was a lot,” she said.

She will hear the fans at least twice more this week.

Their roar began echoing through the stadium as Williams walked onto the court just before 7:30 p.m. following a two-minute tribute video. She wore a black bedazzled jacket and headband and a wrap that flowed from her waist to her ankles.

“Overwhelming,” she said of the noise. “I could feel it in my chest. And it was a really good feeling.”

They roared again as she walked to the center of the court to join the film director Spike Lee for the coin toss, and they lifted her after two early double faults, as she saved break points in the first game, and then as she broke Kovinic in the second with one of those patented forehand putaways from the front of the court. Williams pumped her fist and let the noise fall over Kovinic.

Kovinic settled in though, and two games later the match was tied. She wasn’t going anywhere, especially with Williams struggling to find a rhythm with her serve and netting easy forehands.

But Williams did what she has done for a very long time. She sensed an opening, a moment of weakness in her opponent, and she pounced.

It happened midway through the first set, with Kovinic serving to go up two games. Williams hit a wobbly backhand that looked like it was going long, but it caught the back of the baseline and the edge of the sideline, and Kovinic then double-faulted the game away.

All even once more, Williams started winning the points she needed to. A 115-mile-an-hour ace got her to set point. And then another cannon serve hit her target down the center of the court and Kovinic couldn’t get it back, letting the crowd send up a roar as Williams squatted and pumped her arms. Arthur Ashe Stadium was hers once more.

As the match wore on, it became the kind of contest that Williams relishes, with two players banging balls from the middle of the backcourt. Did Kovinic even realize as she sprayed forehands wide and deep and into the net that she’d fallen into a classic Williams trap, abandoning the angles and spins that have won her matches before?

If she did, Williams had no intention of letting her out.

A few long rallies early in the second set had a gassed Williams going to the towel to catch her breath. But the more balls Williams hit, the better she hit them. Each service game became a little better than the last one.

She started jumping into Kovinic’s second serves to her backhand, sending winners across the court. And in the fifth game of the second set, Kovinic sent one too many forehands long. Williams had broken her serve to go up 3-2 and moved within shouting distance of the finish line. Later, a rolling backhand winner down the line got her to within a game of the victory. She raised her left fist and the roars echoed once more.

Three points later, they stood for match point, a backhand into the net, and Williams was high-stepping and pirouetting like she did in the old days.

Now she will get Kontaveit, as shaky a No. 2 seed as there has ever been.

“It’s like Serena 2.0,” Williams said of the life that awaits her when this is all done. That will wait for now. This party rolls on.

After Williams’s victory, the U.S. Open honors her with a tribute.

Joining King at the microphone was the former tennis great Billie Jean King, who wore pink because she said it was William’s favorite color.

“You are fearless,” she said. “You touched our hearts,” she said, adding that Williams encouraged people to “to be our authentic self, to use our voices, to dream big.”

King took some time to praise Williams’s serve, ambition and leadership, especially for women of color.

“Thank you for sharing your journey,” King said. “And guess what? You’re just beginning.”

The tributes also included a video narrated by Oprah Winfrey, who said: “Thank you for showing us what it means to come back, and for never ever backing down.”

Williams joined Gayle King on the court, and told King about her decision to retire and her plans after tennis, including focusing on her family and her venture capital firm.

“It’s like Serena 2.0,” Williams said about her life after retirement. She also reflected on how far she has come in her career. “I’m from Compton, California,” Williams said. “I made it!”

Before the night’s remarks came to an end, fans in the stands, who had been given blue, red and white cards before the night’s match, stood up and raised their cards to reveal a stadium-sized message for Williams.

“We love Serena,” the cards said, using a heart symbol.

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“It’s been such a hard decision,” Williams said about retiring.

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Serena Williams’s No. 1 supporter is her daughter, Olympia.

As Williams hit aces and swing volleys, which have come to define her game and legacy, Olympia sat nearby in Williams’s player’s box. She donned braids with white beads on them, paying homage to a style her mother wore when she won her first U.S. Open in 1999. Olympia also wore a black bedazzled top that matched the one her mother wore on court.

“It was either her wear beads or me,” Williams said during a news conference after her win.

“I wanted to do it but I just didn’t have the time,” she said, before adding that Olympia has asked to wear beads a lot.

“I was so happy when she had them on, it’s perfect on her.” she said.

Olympia — whose full name is Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. — watched Williams play, but also spent time going back and forth between playing with Isha Price’s hair and sitting in her father’s lap, clapping. Price is one of Williams’s sisters.

“I look forward to just being a mom,” Williams said during a post-match ceremony. “She’s such a good girl and I just want to be a good mom to her.”

Williams began her farewell essay in Vogue with an anecdote about Olympia and how she felt she needed to choose between tennis and family:

Don’t get me wrong: I love being a woman, and I loved every second of being pregnant with Olympia. I was one of those annoying women who adored being pregnant and was working until the day I had to report to the hospital—although things got super complicated on the other side. And I almost did do the impossible: A lot of people don’t realize that I was two months pregnant when I won the Australian Open in 2017. But I’m turning 41 this month, and something’s got to give.

After the match, Olympia and her father went up to the player’s lounge to get ice cream.

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Serena Williams’s power and grit changed the game.

But there is no doubt, with Williams about to play in her farewell U.S. Open just ahead of turning 41, that she changed the game she long dominated; the game she has learned, over time, to treasure.

Her legacy, which is in many respects shared with her older sister and soulmate Venus Williams, is evident in the powerful, aggressive style that has become the norm, if not quite the rule, on tour. See the full-cut, all-action, rip-the-return approach of No. 1 Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina, the new Wimbledon champion.

“One of the greatest impacts Serena had is she definitely took the game to a different level,” said Mary Joe Fernandez, the ESPN analyst and former WTA star whose playing career overlapped with those of the Williamses. “Serena changed it in different ways, whether physically, mentally or movement-wise. It just got better, and it got better because of Serena and also Venus.”

The legacy is also there in the presence of talented young Black women’s stars like Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka and in the increasing number of Black junior players, who, along with their families, have used the Williams sisters as a template. Another indicator: 10 of the top 30 Americans in this week’s WTA singles rankings are Black or biracial (and none of those 10 is a Williams sister at this stage).

“I think everything started with Venus and Serena,” said Martin Blackman, general manager of player development at the United States Tennis Association. “There’s no doubt about the power and the impact of that demonstration effect. I think it was even more powerful because they grew up in Compton, and no matter where you live, you know that Compton is a tough place to grow up. And what their parents Richard and Oracene did to get them what they needed to become champions is just an unbelievable American success story.”

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Serena Williams wins the first set.

All even once more, Williams started winning the points she needed to. A 115 m.p.h. ace got her to set point. And then another cannon serve hit her target down the center of the court and Kovinic couldn’t get it back, letting the crowd send up a roar as Williams squatted and pumped her arms.

There’s a long way to go, but Williams clearly believes she can win this match now, and that is a dangerous thing for her opponent.

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Celebrities at the match include Anna Wintour, Bill Clinton and Queen Latifah.

Olympia’s hairstyle paid tribute to the white beads that Williams wore in her hair when she won the U.S. Open for the first time in 1999, and her outfit nearly matched the one her mother was wearing on the court on Monday night.

Others spotted in the crowd included former President Bill Clinton, who appeared engaged in a long conversation with the psychosexual therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who is 94. Martina Navratilova, the former tennis star, brought her dog Lulu.

Mike Tyson, Katie Couric, Matt Damon, Anthony Anderson, Hugh Jackman, Spike Lee and Vera Wang were also taking in the match, as were Gayle King, the CBS News anchor, and the ski racer Lindsey Vonn. Queen Latifah, who was in the stands, narrated a highlight video of Williams that was played in the stadium. And on an off day for the Mets ahead of a home series against the Dodgers, the star shortstop Francisco Lindor took in the action.

Also in the stands was Coco Gauff, who won in straight sets in her first-round match in Ashe on Monday afternoon.

“I love you,” Gauff said on Twitter, tagging Williams.

After her own match, Gauff told reporters that she hoped Williams wins on Monday.

“I’m sure it’s going to be an emotional night for everyone,” Gauff said. “I hope that tonight is how she wants to end or evolve away from tennis.”

Mayor Eric Adams of New York was also in attendance. “She inspired so many young people to see that there’s no limitation,” Adams said of Williams before the match. He added, “She has done so much to this generation of introducing tennis into their lives.”

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Williams and Kovinic trade early breaks.

Williams has been moving her opponent around the court, prompting Kovinic to hit errors off her forehand.

Williams’s serve looks somewhat shaky, with several double faults in the first few games. Still, the crowd is squarely in Serena’s corner. People have shouted,“I love you!” and “I love you more!” in between points.

A number of high profile celebrities are in the crowd, including Queen Latifah, Katie Couric and Bill Clinton.

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Day 1 brought plenty of excitement, even before the Williams match.

Despite the steamy temperatures and heavy humidity, the grounds in Queens felt as packed as they have for an opening day at this event, the bleachers of the field courts teeming, the lines for a lemonade or a table at a restaurant stretching across the courtyards.

And yet there was plenty of action across the grounds, plenty of big names doing decently big things, like Andy Murray, a two-time U.S. Open champion, a champion from a decade ago desperately trying to recapture his form from before a hip resurfacing. Murray chased a seed here all summer and came up short, but knocked off Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina, who was seeded 24th, in straight sets.

“I essentially take his spot in the draw now,” Murray said after his win. Murray will face Emilio Nava, a wild card from the U.S., in the second round.

Scanning the rest of the court throughout the afternoon, a handful of others stood out. Caroline Garcia of France, a fashionable dark horse after her win near Cincinnati, won in straight sets, and justifiably said she feels as confident as she has ever felt heading into a Grand Slam.

Bianca Andreescu of Canada, the 2019 women’s singles champion who is too talented to not start winning trophies once again soon, bumped off Harmony Tan of France, who beat Williams in three sets in the first round at Wimbledon this year.

And Tim van Rijthoven of the Netherlands, the nobody who came out of nowhere to make the fourth round of Wimbledon last month, kept up his Grand Slam magic, saving seven match points and battling back from two sets down against Zhang Zhizhen of China.

Simona Halep, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion and a semifinalist at Wimbledon last month, had the stumble of the day. Halep fell in three sets to Daria Snigur, a 20-year-old qualifier from Kyiv. Snigur hits a quirky serve and maybe the most open, open-forehand of any player ever, a shot so open, with her hips essentially parallel to the net, it almost looks awkward.

It’s a fairly safe bet that few except the players involved, their coaches, and maybe their parents will remember any of this. This was all prelude. Serena Williams is on the schedule. Win or lose, it figures to be a big and memorable night for her and everyone lucky enough to share it with her.

Serena, playing doubles with Venus, might stick around for a while.

They have won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, most recently at Wimbledon in 2016. They also have three Olympic gold medals.

The numbers don’t foretell a great run for the Williamses. Serena is ranked 605th in doubles, and Venus is ranked 1,504th. As they aged, the biggest problem for them has been their ability to cover the court, especially Serena in her single matches.

In doubles, each sister has to cover only half the court. Also, both sisters are still big-time servers. They will most likely be comfortable playing at the net until they are 67.

Serving well and being solid at the net are 90 percent of doubles success. So if things go south Monday night, hold the farewells: The doubles will not get underway until Wednesday, and a run by the Williamses in that event is not hard to fathom.

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A Ukrainian player upset Simona Halep in the first round of the U.S. Open.

“When I was in the moment, I didn’t understand what happened,” Snigur told reporters after the match. “I think it was the best match in my career.”

After Snigur’s win, her father, who was in the stands, put his hands on top of his head as if in disbelief.

“My father didn’t understand, too,” Snigur said.

Halep, the No. 7 seed, is coached by Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’s former coach. Halep had been given 8-to-1 odds to win the tournament before it began, according to SportsBetting.ag.

“I had tickets tomorrow to Warsaw,” Snigur said.

After shaking hands with Halep and the chair umpire, Snigur stepped back onto the court to wave at the crowd. She made a heart shape with her hands over a yellow-and-blue ribbon affixed to her top, a tribute to her country in the midst of war.

“Ukraine is always in my heart,” Snigur said of the gesture. “This victory is for Ukraine.”

While her father was able to travel with her for the tournament, Snigur said that her mother was still in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Leading up to the U.S. Open, Snigur said she trained in the Latvian capital of Riga because the tennis facility she used in Ukraine had been bombed by Russian forces.

“Sometimes it’s impossible to play, but I try to do my best,” Snigur said. “I try to do the best for Ukraine. I try to support my country.”

In another symbol of support for the country, the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York, an amateur ensemble that specializes in music from Ukraine, performed a song before Monday night’s match in Arthur Ashe Stadium between Serena Williams and Danka Kovinic.

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An Open usher since 1997 welcomes tennis fans to New York.

“The place gets a certain magic when a hometown person is winning that I can’t explain,” Vario said of that night. “They did it for Andre Agassi, too. The whole place lights up.”

She added: “And when people go, ‘Oh, it’s so loud,’ I say, ‘Welcome to New York.’ It’s New York, and we have an energy that’s really hard to contain.”

A lot of people came that night in 1999 just to see Serena Williams play, Vario said. “She really built up the New York audience,” she said.

Williams’s farewell match Monday night would be “tough but exciting,” Vario said. “She’s already warned us that this will be it, so everyone will be rooting for her.”

“She’s still the hometown girl,” she added. “Whether she wins or loses, she’s going to get a standing ovation beyond anything you or I could imagine because she is well loved.”

She said Serena has done a lot for the sport, similar to Billie Jean King. “She’s done a lot to make little girls think they could accomplish stuff, and that’s a strong statement in our society. Period.”

Vario, who is from Mineola, N.Y., met her partner, Jeff Hyman, an Open usher who was known among friends as “the gentle giant” because he was 6 feet 6 inches, at the tournament during a rain delay in 1997, before the roof was installed.

“I fell asleep on the steps and I woke up with a big bear arm over me,” she said. They began dating 15 years ago. Vario said they planned to be married in December. But Hyman had colon cancer, she said, and died Thursday at age 62.

As people trickled into the stadium, it would be hard for them to know that the gregarious woman directing them to their seats had just lost her soul mate, that she no longer had her best ally at the tournament. He would normally stand in a nearby section, and she would tip her white hat to him during matches. The gesture meant “I love you.”

She was still grieving Monday, but she said he would want her to be there working because, realistically, living in New York wasn’t getting any cheaper and bills needed to be paid. But also because of how special the usher experience is.

“You make friends from all around the world,” she said. “I’ve watched people grow up, where they’re driving now, and I remember when their parents were carrying them in, and they’ll come in and give me big kisses.”