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My All Time Internet Crush...Serena Williams - Champion UPDATE: Officially Retired?

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Serena falls to Bencic, bids 'goodbye' to Toronto

A day after telling the world she is preparing to leave professional tennis, Serena Williams exited the National Bank Open on Wednesday night after a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Belinda Bencic. "I'm terrible at goodbyes," she said, "but goodbye, Toronto!"
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Serena Williams loses 2nd-round match in Toronto after indicating playing career is winding down

TORONTO -- Serena Williams wore her game face when she stepped out into the stadium for her first match since telling the world she is ready to leave professional tennis.
Greeted by a standing ovation, the 23-time Grand Slam champion didn't smile. She didn't wave. She took a sip from a plastic bottle as she walked in. Some folks in the crowd captured the moment with the cameras on their cellphones. Others held aloft hand-drawn signs -- oh, so many signs -- with messages such as "Queen'' or "Thank you.''
No one knows exactly how many more matches Williams will play before she puts her rackets away for good, but the 40-year-old American exited the National Bank Open on Wednesday night with a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Belinda Bencic.



While there were some familiar fist pumps and yells of "Come on!'' during competition, it was only afterward that Williams really allowed her feelings to show, her voice shaking and her eyes welling during an on-court interview when Bencic ceded the spotlight.
"A lot of emotions, obviously,'' Williams told spectators who offered her encouragement throughout the clear, 75-degree evening.
The second-round match at the hard-court tuneup for the US Open came a day after she announced "the countdown has begun'' on her playing career, saying she wants to have another child and pursue business interests.
A day after telling the world she is preparing to leave professional tennis, Serena Williams exited the National Bank Open on Wednesday night after a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Belinda Bencic. "I'm terrible at goodbyes," she said, "but goodbye, Toronto!" Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images
She did not state precisely what her last event will be, but did make it sound as if her final farewell will come at the US Open, which begins Aug. 29 in New York. Williams has won the singles title at Flushing Meadows a half-dozen times -- first in 1999; most recently in 2014 -- to go along with seven championships apiece at Wimbledon and the Australian Open, plus three at the French Open.
"It's been a pretty interesting 24 hours,'' Williams said after Wednesday's match.
"I'm terrible at goodbyes,'' she added, her hand on her chest, "but goodbye, Toronto!''
Next up on her schedule is the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati next week, another event that serves as preparation for the year's last Grand Slam tournament.
Williams, a three-time champion in Canada, started this match, fittingly enough, with an ace. Delivered another later in that game, too, showing off the superb serve that helped her to so many match victories, so many tournament titles, so many weeks at No. 1 in the rankings.
That elite ability showed up occasionally against Bencic, whether the trio of unreturnable serves to close out that opening game or a later put away swinging volley accented with a shout and a tug on the brim of her white visor.
But because of a leg injury that sidelined her for the last half of 2021 and first half of 2022, she was playing for only the third time in the past 12 months. There were signs of that, as well, and of why Williams is no longer the dominant force she was for so long.

The breaks of her serve that were never quite so frequent when she was younger and at the height of her powers. The not-quite-on-target groundstrokes. The inability to offer up too much resistance while receiving serve; she only earned one break point in the first set, missing a return long to fritter away that chance, and none in the second.
"I wish I could have played better,'' Williams said, "but Belinda played so well today.''
It did not help Williams that she was facing an opponent 15 years her junior and quite talented, to boot: Bencic is ranked 12th, won a gold medal for Switzerland at the Tokyo Olympics last year and has been a Grand Slam semifinalist.
"It's always an honor to be on the court with her,'' Bencic said, "and that's why I think tonight is about her.''
Bencic took home the Toronto trophy at age 18 in 2015, when she eliminated Williams in the semifinals to earn the distinction of being the youngest woman to beat a player many consider, as one homemade poster in the stands declared Wednesday, the "GOAT'' -- the greatest of all-time.
 
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Jack Walsh 13
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It's time. She's one of the greatest

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Serena struggles in straight-sets loss in Cincinnati

In what proved to be her final tune-up match before the US Open, Serena Williams lost in straight sets on Tuesday night to Emma Raducanu in the first round of the Western & Southern Open in Ohio.
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Serena Williams' run in Cincinnati short-lived, as Emma Raducanu posts Round 1 win in straight sets

MASON, Ohio -- Serena Williams lost in the opening-round match of what is likely the penultimate tournament of her career Tuesday, but she was still given a hero's send-off following the 6-4, 6-0 defeat to Emma Raducanu at the Western & Southern Open.
Moments after losing, Williams was given a standing ovation from the crowd and drew praise from her opponent on the court after the match.


"We all should honor Serena and her amazing career," said Raducanu, the 2021 US Open champion. "I'm so grateful for the experience to have been able to play her and for our careers to have crossed over. Everything she's achieved is so inspirational. It was a true honor to share the court with her."
Williams, for her part, appeared to decline the on-court interviewer as she quickly packed her bags and walked off the court immediately after the match, waving and smiling to the crowd as she went. A microphone that had been set up on the opposite side of the net from Raducanu's interview was then removed from the court.

It's been an emotional week for Williams. The 40-year-old announced she would soon be walking away from tennis in a first-person essay for Vogue published last Tuesday, sharing her desire to have another child.
Williams, who has the most major titles of any player in the Open Era with 23, has admitted to having mixed feelings about retirement -- even opting to use the word "evolution" about her next chapter instead.
"There is no happiness in this topic for me," Williams wrote. "I know it's not the usual thing to say, but I feel a great deal of pain. It's the hardest thing that I could ever imagine. I hate it.
"I hate that I have to be at this crossroads. I keep saying to myself, I wish it could be easy for me, but it's not. I'm torn: I don't want it to be over, but at the same time I'm ready for what's next."
Since her reveal, Williams received much fanfare in her second-round loss at the Canadian Open, in which there was an on-court ceremony following the match, and ticket sales skyrocketed at the Western & Southern Open and the US Open.
Williams' afternoon practice session on Tuesday drew hundreds of fans cramming to catch a glimpse of the star.
It was a near-capacity crowd at the 11,435-seat Center Court on Tuesday, and there were chants heard and visible signs in support of Williams until the final point. In addition to her family, including four-year-old daughter Olympia, in the crowd, four-time major champion Naomi Osaka, who lost earlier in the day, was also in attendance.

Williams struggled early in her first career meeting with Raducanu, 19, and trailed 4-1 before fighting back and winning three of the next four games. But the second set was all Raducanu, who will next face two-time major champion Victoria Azarenka, and she closed out the match in 65 minutes.
"I think that the crowd was pretty electric," Raducanu said in her postmatch news conference. "The stadium was really packed. Even if they were cheering for Serena ... I was prepared for that.
"You know, to play the greatest in her home country in a stadium like that, I knew, and I was all for it. You know, if she's maybe going to stop playing soon, then 100% go cheer ahead."
Williams is expected to play in her final tournament at the US Open, which begins in New York on Aug. 29. She is a six-time champion at the event, and reached the semifinals in her last appearance in 2020. She reached the final in 2018 and 2019.
 

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