Kontaveit is not known as the steeliest of competitors, especially in the biggest tournaments. A service winner got Williams to set point, and an ace clinched it, sending a roar up through the open rectangle of the Ashe roof. Two games later, the players headed into a tiebreaker that stayed even until Williams grabbed a 5-3 lead as Kontaveit netted a drop shot. But Williams frittered the prosperity and failed to serve out the set. Williams finally notched the first service break in the ninth game, on her sixth break point, sending a crowd that had been revving up all night into its first eruption. She brought the sound effects, too, the warrior grunts, screams of “Come on!” and sneakers screeching across the pavement on every pivot and twist. She hustled into the corners to dig out shots with swings of desperation. Suddenly Danka Kovinic of Montenegro was like so many other overmatched first-round victims during the height of Williams’s powers.īut for a few shaky swings early on, Williams essentially picked up where she had left off, reeling off deep forehands that had Kontaveit backpedaling and crushing serves that darted onto the lines. This idea, that Williams could somehow turn what two weeks ago was shaping up to be one ceremonial goodbye match into top-level sport, began to take shape in the last games of her Monday-night win, when she started rolling those patented forehands and surging forward for those patented swinging volleys. “I always remember how fiercely she competed for every point.” “I’ve grown up watching her win so many Grand Slams,” said Kontaveit, 26. And he made a pretty good one that welcomed Williams, in her bedazzled shoes and dress and hair and warm-up jacket, onto the court once more. Ultimately, a battle like that, especially on this court, was going to be better than any tribute video even her friend Spike Lee, the award-winning filmmaker, could make. The other was attempting to get one thing that every young player wants - the chance to tell her grandchildren that on a magical night in the biggest stadium in the sport, she beat the greatest player of all time. Olympia was turning 5 on Thursday and showed up to this tournament in the iconic beads her mother wore the first time she began to rule this sport on this same stage. In front of another capacity crowd, one of them, assuming she keeps her word, was playing to extend the greatest career in modern tennis, and to show her daughter, Olympia, just what she is capable of. It was a showdown between two players who, when they are on, are among the best ball-strikers in the world, and two players at the opposite ends of the sport. No matter who prevailed, this was never going to be a match with much subtlety.

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