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You have no doubt read the news that Serena Williams will be retiring at the end of the 2022 US Open. And this would seem a fitting venue for the legend to hang up her rackets. After all, she has won the tournament six times in the past. These titles came in 1999, 2002, 2008, 2012, 2013, and 2014. As you can see, she completed the hat-trick from 2012-2014, which was amazing to witness as a tennis fan. But not all of these titles were straightforward, which brings me to the purpose of sharing this information today.
I wanted to take a look back at Serena’s best US Open titles so that we can remember how much of a gladiator she really was. And I can tell you now, it’s been somewhat tricky to narrow down the six titles to her ‘best ever’. But I believe that I have been able to do so, and I have justified the reasons for picking them through the details below.
Anyway, you are probably eager to see which titles I have classified as her best ever. So let me cover the top US Open titles for Serena Williams right now.
The Very Best US Open Victories for Serena
Contents
Before I reveal the details of the best US Open titles that Serena has won, I should probably clarify something. Of course, each of her US Open titles has been magnificent in its own regard. And the fact that Serena has won the tournament six times is something that has to be acknowledged. Winning the event just once would be a dream for many. But Serena Williams is far from ordinary, hence the 23 Grand Slam titles she has to her name. So with this cleared up, let us take a trip down memory lane to recap her best US Open titles.
1999 US Open Title
Without question, the 1999 US Open title has to rank as the best of the bunch, for me. This was her first US Open title, and amazingly, she managed to win the event at just 17 years of age. Winning the tournament as a teenager was one thing, but the manner in which she won the event was another thing entirely. For the record, this was the first Grand Slam that Serena won in her career. And during the tournament, she beat a series of Grand Slam champions back to back.
This included Clijsters, Martinez, Seles, and Davenport (the defending champion), followed by Martina Hingis – the world number one. Fair to say, after this the world definitely sat up and took note of the talent that Serena possessed. It was also pretty amazing that she managed to win the US Open before her sister, Venus Williams, who is the elder of the two. There was also plenty of talk about Serena winning the title as an African-American woman. She was the first to actually do this since Althea Gibson back in 1958.
I should also mention that Serena won the doubles with Venus at the same tournament.
2002 US Open Title
By the time 2002 came around, the dust had settled surrounding the excitement of the victory in 1999. But at the same time, the excitement was boiling over regarding the rivalry between Serena and her sister Venus. That’s because Venus Williams actually won the US Open title in both 2000 and 2001. And in 2001, this was the first time that Venus beat Serena in a Grand Slam final. So it seemed somewhat fitting that the two would play each other once more in the 2002 US Open. However, this time it would be the turn of Serena to beat her sister.
Of course, the fact that she won the tournament and beat Venus makes this one of the more special titles of her career. It was actually the third time running that Serena had beaten Venus in a Grand Slam final that year. She had beaten Venus at the French Open and Wimbledon in both finals previously. And at the 2002 US Open, this signified how superior Serena was to the rest of the tennis world – winning the title without losing a single set.
This was also the first that Serena won the US Open as the number one ranked player in the world. So quite literally, she solidified her standing as the world’s best in 2002, by quite some margin.
2014 US Open Title
The last of Serena’s best US Open titles came in 2014. As stated previously, this was the year where Serena managed to cement a hat-trick of US Open victories. And to do this in the era that she did was simply remarkable. Once again, Serena won the tournament without dropping a set, something which she seemed to enjoy doing in her career. There is a little more to the story than just this, however. Earlier that year, Williams seemed to be losing her mojo, so to speak. She lost in the 4th round of the Australian Open, the second round of the French Open, and the 3rd round of Wimbledon.
So naturally, nobody really expected that she would then go on to win the 2014 US Open. But as history confirms, Serena surged back from these troublesome defeats to take her third US Open title in a row and her 6th overall. And this victory actually meant that Serena had won 19 out of 20 matches since retiring in a doubles match earlier that season with her sister. Furthermore, not only did Serena not lose a set in the tournament, she didn’t concede more than 3 games in a single set throughout the event.
So to say that she was in brutal form would be a huge understatement. To take the tournament, she dispatched Caroline Wozniacki by a score of 6-3 6-3. She was in complete control the entire time, and once again, she showed the world who Serena Williams really was. This victory was full of power, competitiveness, and above all, magnificent tennis.
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