Us Open – Serena Williams beats Kovinic, farewell postponed

“Not today”, said Arya Stark in a famous sentence from Game of Thrones. “Not today”. Likewise, the US Open first round match against Montenegrin Danka Kovinic was not the last of Serena Williams’ career. Flowers, tears, applause, celebrations, speeches and farewell hugs: not today, all postponing.

The almost 41-year-old, winner of 23 Grand Slams, of which six in New York, passes to the second round (6-3 6-3 the final result), thus postponing her farewell to tennis for at least a couple of days.

Now the Kontaveit

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Now for Serena there is Anett Kontaveit, seeded number two on the scoreboard, certainly a more demanding player than Kovinic, but she too has returned from a period of ice, where she did not get one right. The Estonian against this Williams is undoubtedly the favorite, but the prediction and the outcome could be much less obvious than you think. The Artur Ashe exploded at Serena’s entrance, introduced by the narran voice of Queen Latifah, who played a lot on the meaning of her own name. Queen. Queen. Queen Serena. Williams queen of tennis has undoubtedly been for twenty years, where she has achieved a staggering streak: 73 titles, 857 victories, 336 in slams, more than 94 million euros in prize money alone. Yet all this is not enough, and will never be enough, to explain what she meant, what Serena (and her sister Venus) meant for this sport.

The show

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The youngest of the Williams, under the eyes of her daughter Olympia (with the typical braids of mum and aunt at the beginning of their careers), entered with a queen’s dress, sparkling with stars, with a sort of train. Everything was ready for the big farewell, the stars in the stands: from Mike Tyson to Anna Wintour. No way. Kovinic, number 80 in the world, at first did not seem too frightened or too nervous, almost seemed to ignore everything that was happening around, aware that she too had a note of history and that one day it could easily be a question of some TV quizzes (“Who was the player who ended Serena Williams’ career” or something like that). Little by little, however, the certainties of the Montenegrin (who does not win a game from the second round of Roland Garros), have been crumbling against a Serena distant solar systems from her old splendor, but certainly acceptable.

The former world number struggled a bit more in the first, when after a break she went 3-2 down and the Montenegrin served, who also had the ball of 4-2, but then the six-time winner she took control of the situation of this tournament, and that was enough so that the last day of the American as a tennis player was not on Monday 29 August. “I’m lucky, because whatever fear I have inside me, the desire to win is getting stronger”. Ladies and gentlemen, Serena Williams.