TORONTO –
Serena Williams wore her game face as she stepped onto the stadium for her first game since telling the world she was ready to leave professional tennis.
Greeted by a standing ovation, the 23-time Grand Slam champion wasn’t smiling. She didn’t wave. She took a sip from a plastic bottle as she walked in. A few people in the crowd captured the moment with their cell phone cameras. Others held up hand-drawn signs – oh, so many signs – with messages like “Queen” or “Thank you.”
No one knows exactly how many games Williams will play before she finally puts down her racquets, and the 40-year-old American exited the National Bank Open in a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Belinda Bencic on Wednesday night.
While there were some familiar fist pumps and cries of “Come on!” During the competition, Williams only really admitted her feelings afterwards, her voice shaking and her eyes watering during an on-court interview as Bencic ceded the spotlight.
“A lot of emotion, of course,” Williams told viewers, who encouraged her during the clear 75-degree evening.
The second-round hard-court tuning match for the US Open came a day after she announced “the countdown has begun” to her playing career and said she wants to have another child and pursue business interests.
She hasn’t said exactly what her final event will be, but it sounded like her final farewell would come at the US Open, which begins August 29 in New York. Williams has won the singles title at Flushing Meadows half a dozen times—first in 1999; most recently in 2014 – with seven championships each in Wimbledon and the Australian Open and three at the French Open.
“It’s been a pretty interesting 24 hours,” Williams said after Wednesday’s game.
“I’m terrible at goodbyes,” she added, hand on her chest, “but goodbye Toronto!”
Next up is the Western & Southern Open next week in Cincinnati, another event in preparation for the final Grand Slam tournament of the year.
Williams, a three-time champion in Canada, appropriately started this match with an ace. She also hit another later in the game, showing the excellent serve that has brought her so many match wins, so many tournament titles and so many weeks at the top of the leaderboard helped.
That elite ability showed occasionally against Bencic, whether that trio of irretrievable serves to close out that opening game or a later shelved swinging volley accented with a yell and a tug on the edge of her white visor.
But a leg injury that sidelined her in the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022 is only her third game in the last 12 months. There were signs of that, too, and why Williams is no longer the dominant force she has been for so long.
The breaks in her serve, which were never so frequent when she was younger and at the peak of her strength. The not-quite-directed groundstrokes. Inability to resist too much on serve; She earned just one break point in the first set, long missing a return to squander that chance and none in the second.
“I wish I could have played better,” Williams said, “but Belinda played so well today.”
The fact that she met an opponent who was 15 years younger and also very talented didn’t help Williams: Bencic is in 12th place, won gold for Switzerland at the Olympic Games in Tokyo last year and was a Grand Slam semi-finalist.
“It’s always an honor to be on the pitch with her,” said Bencic, “so I think tonight is about her.”
Bencic won the Toronto Trophy in 2015 at the age of 18 when she eliminated Williams in the semifinals to earn the distinction of being the youngest woman to defeat a player many dubbed “GOAT,” like a homemade poster declared in the stands on Wednesday – the greatest of all time.
Bencic faced off against two-time Major champion Garbine Muguruza, who defeated Kaia Kanepi 6-4, 6-4. Seeds who left Wednesday’s draw included No. 2 Anett Kontaveit, No. 4 Paula Badosa, No. 5 Ons Jabeur, No. 13 Leylah Fernandez and No. 16 Jelena Ostapenko.
Jabeur, runner-up from last month’s Wimbledon, stopped in the second set against Zheng Qinwen due to a stomach ache. Badosa cited muscle spasms for her retirement during the game as she lagged behind Yulia Putintseva.
Fernandez, the Canadian who was last year’s US Open runner-up, lost to Beatriz Haddad Maia 7-6(4), 1-6 while Alison Riske-Amritraj defeated 2017 French Open winner Ostapenko 7-6 (2), 0 defeated -6, 7-5.