You could see Serena Williams's expressions change as Caroline Wozniacki slapped a backhand into the tape after an astonishing 26-shot rally in what was eventually the final game of the US Open women's final.
Her eyes turned moist and Williams looked like she would burst into tears.
But she needed two more points and the 17-time grand slam title winner walked away to compose herself.
A booming, ballistic forehand then gave her two championship points and, when Wozniacki hit the next point long, Williams’s legs collapsed under her.
Clutching her face, gasping for breath and in tears, the world No 1 lay sprawled for about 30 seconds before rising abruptly, seeming a bit dazed as she looked around the sprawling Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Williams, as she later joked, got up to check the scoreboard.
After failed bids to win an 18th major title at the first three grand slam tournaments of the year, the American just wanted to be sure.
Once she got the confirmation of her 6-3, 6-3 victory, there was a heavy sigh of relief.
In the past, Williams celebrated her grand slam conquests with twirls and pageant waves or, at times, controversial dance steps. his time, there was none of that.
After hugging her “good friend” Wozniacki, she sank on her chair, allowing her tears to flow freely down her cheeks.
She said that she has been trying to reach title No 18 “for so long, it was definitely on my shoulders”.
“It was like, ‘get there, get there, get there’,” she said.
“It was eluding me for so long: three tournaments is a long time for me. I didn’t think I was going to win a slam this year and I even said, ‘I’m ready to start next year already, let’s put this behind me’.”
Most of her fans probably felt the same way.
Six women had contested the finals of the first three grand slam tournaments and Williams was not one of them.
She lost in the fourth round at the Australian Open and the second at the French.
At Wimbledon, she was a third-round casualty in the singles and made a bizarre exit from the doubles, unable to walk and incapable of landing her serves over the net.
So, there were plenty of doubts as Williams arrived in New York, but not any more.
She won all 14 sets at the US Open without dropping more than three games in any of them and she spent less than eight hours on the court in winning her seven matches.
Williams, who turns 33 on September 26, is the second-oldest player to win a grand slam title in the Open era after Martina Navratilova, who won the 1990 Wimbledon title at the age of 34.
She also joins Navratilova and Chris Evert on the list of most major titles, with only Margaret Court (24), Steffi Graf (22) and Helen Wills Moody (19) ahead.
Navratilova and Evert were both on court after the final and presented Williams with a gold bracelet carrying the number 18 to mark her achievement.
“I just could never have imagined that I would be mentioned with Chris Evert or with Martina Navratilova, because I was just a kid from Compton with a dream and a racket,” said Williams after her third successive, and sixth overall, US Open title.
“I’m really emotional.”
Flushing Meadows has been a special place in Williams’s journey to greatness.
She won her first grand slam title there as a 17 year old in 1999 and she got the elusive No 18 on those same courts 15 years later.
That longevity, according to former doubles star Pam Shriver, puts Williams in a league of her own. Navratilova and Evert won their 18 over a 12-year period, the same number of years that Graf took to win her 22 titles, which is the Open-era record.
“To me, Serena’s longevity is one of those are-you-kidding-me stats,” Shriver told ESPN. “I’d put Serena and Martina in front of Steffi.
“Steffi won her first title in 1987 and won her last in 1999. Serena won her first in 1999. So far, for Serena, that’s a 15-year gap between your first and your last. Which also measures greatness: that ability to do it over time.”
Using the same argument, John McEnroe, speaking on the CBS network, said: “It’s pretty hard to argue with the fact that if she’s playing the way she’s capable of playing, she’s the greatest female player of all time. How intimidating she is, with the power, she’s got everything.”
Evert said, Serena might match Graf’s total of 22, as well.
“There’s no reason why she can’t reach Steffi,” said Evert, on ESPN.
“She can win three or four more for sure, in my mind, if she stays healthy, stays engaged in the sport and stays motivated.”
Williams does seem motivated, perhaps more than she has ever been.
Three hours after her win, she was talking about No 19 and the need “to continue to rise and continue to play really hard and do the best that I can”.
At her best, as we saw over the past two weeks, she can annihilate the competition.
Age, as she keeps repeating, becomes a mere number then.
arizvi@thenational.ae
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