The GOAT calls it quits

Image: Wikimedia Commons. Serena Williams US Open 2013

After more than two decades of unrivalled supremacy in global women’s tennis the icon widely regarded as, the greatest of all time (GOAT), Serena Williams, has called it quits to the dismay of millions of tennis fans.

Despite having taken a hiatus from women’s tennis for around the last year and a half, Serena Williams displayed few signs of rust at the US Open as she treated the crowds to her unique and extensive repertoire of exceptional skills which when mingled with her famously steely resolve made her such an intimidating opponent to go up against.

With the partisan home crowds at Flushing Meadows in New York willing her on, Serena Williams drove them into raptures when she fended off the challenge posed by the tournament’s second seed Annet Kontaveit to eventually win their second round contest in the tournament’s opening week.

In the immediate aftermath of that pleasing triumph, there was a palpable feeling in the air that Serena could actually turn her farewell into a fairy-tale run through the competition and there was even talk of her winning the whole shebang.

Sadly though, the hands of Father Time cannot be wound backwards as the 23-times grand slam champion and 41-year-old finally exited the tournament in the third round after losing in a spellbinding thriller to Aussie star Ajla Tomljanovic.

Despite her ouster from the US Open, Serena Williams leaves the stage as a trailblazing tennis player par excellence who has flung the doors wide-open for her fellow African-Americans like teenage sensation Coco Gauff and Frances Tiafoe to enter into the arena of international tennis and hopefully gain some measure of success too.

All hail the GOAT, then Serena Williams and hats off to her for her legendary and inspirational career.