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Serena Williams is now one win shy of taking the record set by Chris Evert. On Tuesday night, she absolutely obliterated her competition, Qiang Wang, scoring 6-1, 6-0, making it her 100th US Open win.
Going into next week, however, is where it is going to get really interesting for Williams. If she can make just one more win, she will tie Evert with 101 wins in a US Open.
Her match with Wang lasted just 44 minutes, and Williams smoked her competition.
Wang didn’t seem to know what hit her – it was the player’s first career grand slam quarter-final match, but she barely was able to participate, getting crushed by the veteran of the game.
This is William’s third grand slam final entrance since she returned to the game 16 months ago, and she finally seems to be at her peak performance. What makes this time any different?
Since returning after giving birth to her daughter, Olympia, Williams has seen only some success. She was previously defeated by Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, and Simona Halep, and some people speculated that her age was catching up to her.
Sportscasters have gone as far as to call some of her performances a “disaster”.
The difference here doesn’t just seem to be time out from the pregnancy, but preparation. Williams knew she would go up against Maria Sharapova first, another major name and veteran to the game.
The 37-year-old tennis superstar isn’t an idiot, and she knows that the older she gets, the less likely she is able to make these amazing plays. If she is going to secure her spot in history as one of the best tennis players in the world, not just one of the best female tennis players, she needs to keep pulling in wins.
After one of her games last week, she admitted to reporters that she does expect there to be a day when she wakes up and realizes she is “done” with the sport, though she isn’t quite there yet.
Williams seems well aware she is playing against athletes sometimes half her age, and while she is beating them now, time is not on her side.
Tonight, Williams to face off against Elina Svitolina, the 5th ranked player in the world. At only 24, she has already made a name for herself in the world of tennis but has yet to qualify for a grand slam event. Svitolina says that the pressure of major events like this get to her, and she finds the idea of facing Williams to be “a challenge”.
