No. 3 of '22: Serena Williams' unforgettable three-night run peaks with a win over the US Open's No. 2 seed

HIGHLIGHTS: Serena Williams d. Anett Kontaveit 7-6 (4), 2-6, 6-2, US Open third round

Serena Williams and Arthur Ashe Stadium grew up together. The arena opened in 1997, and Williams made her debut there, as a 16-year-old, in 1998. Over the next quarter century, no one filled up that vast steel-and-concrete bowl with as much heart, soul, joy and tears as she did.

There was never a dull moment when Serena was in Ashe. She won her first major title at the US Open, and then won five more. She had some of her most infamous sparring sessions with officials there. She missed out on a calendar-year Grand Slam there. Twice she came up one win short of her long-sought 24th major title there.

But what Serena did more than anything else in Ashe was show off her greatest trait: her resilience. She always put her disappointments and controversies in the rearview mirror and came back to the Big Apple for more. So it was only fitting that, as a 40-year-old, she made one last run at No. 24, and played what will likely be her final match, in the stadium named after her fellow African-American tennis pioneer. Arthur Ashe Stadium, and tennis, had never seen anything like it.

I didn’t think it was possible, but in terms of decibels, intensity, star power, and pure love, the scenes that Serena inspired this year surpassed Agassi’s farewell.

“A jet engine and a giant heartbeat,” is how another U.S. legend and New York favorite, Andre Agassi, described the sound that reverberated through that arena during his own final hurrah in 2006. I was there that year to hear the 23,000-person roar when Agassi recorded his 870th and final win, over Marcos Baghdatis. And I was there to hear it again when Serena recorded her 858th and (probably) final win, over Anett Kontaveit.

I didn’t think it was possible, but in terms of decibels, intensity, star power, and pure love, the scenes that Serena inspired this year surpassed Agassi’s farewell. Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton, Hugh Jackman, Matt Damon, Mike Tyson, Zendaya, the Hadid sisters and Anthony Anderson were just a few of the celebrities sighted during her three-night run. For years, many of us complained that Ashe was too big. Serena, like Agassi, showed us the emotional power that so many people in one place, rooting for one person, can have.

Even Serena herself sounded impressed.

“I think you can only have this experience once in a lifetime,” she said.

Serena made the most of it. More important, she used every bit of energy she could take from the crowd to beat a player 14 years her junior. Kontaveit was No. 2 in the world at the time, and she started off with a love hold. But it didn’t take Serena long to find the range on her serve and show us why, whatever the rankings of the moment told us, she had the advantage in this matchup. You could see it in the pace that each player created with her shots, and the sounds those shots made coming off the strings. Serena closed out the first set with one of her 11 aces.

“It’s kind of coming together,” Serena said. “I mean, I had to bring it together today.”

Yet Kontaveit found an answer in the second set. She couldn’t match Serena’s power, but she could match her placement, and she moved the ball, and Serena, from corner to corner to cruise through a 6-2 second set.

In the end, though, all Kontaveit did was give her opponent a platform for one last final-set charge. Up 1-0 in the third, Serena hammered two forehand returns—one down the line, one crosscourt—for roof-raising winners. It was the same shot she had used to win a crucial point in the 1999 final, against Martina Hingis. Back then, it signaled that Serena could reach a level that even her best-known competitors, like Hingis, couldn’t. Twenty-three years later, nothing had changed; Kontaveit had no answer for Serena’s best. Nobody ever had.

“I think honestly what I’ll remember most is that my level was coming back,” Serena said. “I think I’m really grateful for that. It’s great to be playing at such a high level, somehow improving. I don’t know how at my age.”

Serena’s age finally caught up with her in a three-set loss to Ajla Tomljanovic in the next round. But even then, she went down swinging—and swinging, and swinging some more. Serena fell behind 1-5 in the third, but that didn’t stop her from giving us one last glimpse of her best. She saved five match points. She refused to miss. She came up with so many brilliant last-ditch shots that all Tomljanovic could do was stare across the net and throw up her hand in exasperation. “Unreal,” she seemed to be saying, along with everyone else in Ashe.

Finally, after 15 of the most tumultuous minutes the stadium has seen, Serena did miss. But by beating the No. 2 player in the world, Serena defined herself as a winner to the end. And by saving five match points against Tomljanovic, she defined herself as a competitor to the end.

“There’s so many things to be remembered by,” Serena said at the conclusion of her (probably) final press conference. “Like the fight. I’m such a fighter. I feel like I really brought something, and bring something, to tennis. The different looks, the fist pumps, the just crazy intensity. I think that obviously passion, I think, is a really good word.

“Just continuing through ups and downs, I could go on and on. But I just honestly am so grateful that I had this moment and that I’m Serena.”

She didn’t perform a miracle in her final tournament, but she found out she was still Serena. That was enough for her. Judging by the love the Ashe crowd showed her all week, it was enough for us, too.