For any professional sports athlete, one of the ultimate dreams is to go out on your own terms with nothing more to prove.
Serena Wiliiams
Serena Williams, arguably the greatest women’s tennis player ever, had the fortunes of doing just that. She retired on her own terms after losing to Ajla Tomljanović in the third round of the 2022 US Open. And of course, Williams had nothing more to prove at that point. Her legacy and place among the all-time athletes had already been cemented. Anything she accomplished at the 2022 US Open was simply gravy.
Williams gave it her all against Tomljanović, but the 29-year-old held off the signature determination and fight from Serena to advance. Tomljanović would lose to Ons Jabeur in quarterfinals play. Jabeur reached the finals but fell to Iga Świątek in the finals.
Tennis is among the many sports that residents of The Empire State can bet on through New York sports betting apps.
New York launched legalized sports gambling in January, and new customers can enjoy several special sign-up bonuses that include a $1,000 risk-free wager from FanDuel, four risk-free bets of up to $200 each from PointsBet and $200 from DraftKings if you bet $5 on the NFL and win the bet.
The DraftKings sportsbook currently lists Świątek as the +225 betting favorite to win the women’s singles 2023 US Open tournament. Simona Halep and Caroline Garcia share the second-highest odds at +900, followed by Aryna Sabalenka (+1000) and Coco Gauff (+1100).
Świątek will try to become the first back-to-back women’s singles US Open champion since Williams, who won three in a row from 2012 to 2014.
Williams Legacy: The Greatest Women’s Tennis Player Ever
In a piece written for Vogue that was published weeks before the US Open, Williams announced her plans to retire from tennis. Williams, 40, talked about wanting to spend more time with her daughter, Olympia.
Again, Williams didn’t have anything more to prove at this phase of her career. She battled a plethora of injuries over her final years, but it didn’t stop her from tuning in so many inspirational and resilient performances.
Only Australian Margaret Court has more Grand Slam singles victories (24) than Williams (23). Yes, the two played in many different eras, and it’s very difficult to compare the two.
But many will point out that Court played in an easier era. One can argue that Williams faced much more difficult competition in her era, yet she was always dominating the playing field.
Also, nearly half of Court’s Grand Slam wins came in the Australian Open. She won the tournament 11 times, the French Open five times, Wimbledon thrice and the US Open five times.
Williams may be one short of Court’s Grand Slam singles record, but her success spread all over the grand stages. She won seven Australian Opens, three French Opens, a whopping seven Wimbledons and six US Opens.
And if Williams didn’t suffer so many injuries that caused her to miss a plethora of Grand Slam singles, she would’ve likely surpassed Court’s total of 24 Grand Slam singles.
Williams required knee surgery in 2003 and missed large portions of the 2004, 2005 and ‘06 seasons. Williams was in her prime during those phases, so there’s really no telling how many more majors she would’ve won if it weren’t for the knee injury.
An achilles injury hampered Williams for much of the 2020 season. We saw that she still had plenty of effective tennis left the year before, as Williams reached the 2019 Wimbledon finals (she lost to Halep) and the US Open finals (lost to Bianca Andreescu).
The 2000s and 2010s were largely dominated by Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, as those three combined for a whopping 63 Grand Slam singles championships.
But nobody came close to matching Williams’ dominance in the female tennis world. She was far-and-away the best of her era, and nobody was ever a constant threat to her individual success. Certainly not the way Djokovic, Federer and Nadal constantly stood in the way of one another.
That’s Serena Williams’ legacy following her emotional retirement from the court: The greatest women’s tennis player ever, and the title should stay with her until the end of time. There’s simply too much parity in today’s era of tennis for anybody to match her unprecedented success.
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