Serena Williams began – and finished – her return to Wimbledon after 364 days out of singles, much like someone who hasn’t competed in so long. She missed shots, shook her head, rolled her eyes.
Among them were moments when Williams played a lot as a man whose blows would have led her to 23 Grand Slam titles. She made incredible passes and punches, celebrated with her hands up.
Returning to the place of her last singles match, which she had to stop after less than a set due to injury on June 29, 2021 and seven of her major championships, the 40-year-old Williams reached two points from the victory. But she failed to finish the match against an opponent who debuted at Wimbledon and gave up with a 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7) loss to 115th in the Harmony Tan rankings from France.
“It’s definitely better than last year,” Williams said. – This is the beginning.
“She defeated a legend.”
Three hours and 10 minutes later Harmony Tan defeats Serena Williams in an epic episode of the first round pic.twitter.com/IQst8AzXxv
– @Wimbledon
Asked if this could be her last game, Williams replied: “It’s a question I can’t answer. I don’t know … Who knows? Who knows where I’ll jump?”
With her older sister Venus jumping out of the Center’s guest seat to celebrate the best points, Serena Williams was so close to pulling out an inverted match that lasted 3 hours, 11 minutes and was contested by the retractable roof closes for the last two sets.
“When I saw the draw, I was really scared”
“For my first Wimbledon, it’s: Wow. It’s just wow, “said Tan, 24, who remembers watching Williams on television as a young man.
“When I saw the draw, I was really scared,” Tan said with a laugh, “because it’s Serena Williams. She’s a legend. I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, how can I play?’
This is an indication of how things were in the beginning: of Tan’s first 11 points, only one came through a winner she produced. Others came through Williams’ mistakes, forced or unforced.
While Williams – who wore two pieces of black ribbon on his right cheek; the reason was not immediately clear – she recovered from missing the first two games to take a 4-2 lead, she reversed the course and allowed Tan to quickly climb back into this set with her combination of turns and slices.
When Tan pulled even at 4-all by hitting a backhand winner, she celebrated with a shout; that shot was so good that even Williams felt compelled to applaud.
Tan entered the day with a record of 2-6 in the career of all Grand Slam tournaments. Apparently enjoying – and the atmosphere, the moment, the way everything was going – she tried to lead 6-5 with the help of a forehand winner from the cross court, looked at her guest box, raised her fist and waved her hands to ask for more noise from the crowd, which strongly supported Williams.
Very soon, a winner with a forehand pass gave Tan this set. At this point, it seemed reasonable to ask: Can Tan achieve the biggest victory of his career? Can Williams leave the major in the first round only for the third time in 80 appearances (the previous ones were the loss of the French Open in 2012 and this withdrawal in the middle of the Wimbledon match last year)?
The latter happened, of course, although Williams certainly played spectacularly in the second set. She won a monumental game to take a 2-0 lead, breaking through after 30 points and 12 doubles in almost 20 minutes when Tan hit a forehand in the chair judge’s stance.
Then for a moment it became 5-0 and it certainly seemed that Williams was on the way.
Her serves accelerated and became more accurate: after winning only 57% of her points for the first serve in the first set, she won 80% in the second. Her other shots were better calibrated: after making 22 unforced errors in the first set, she made 13 in the second.
In the third set, Williams was two points ahead as he served for the game at 5-4, but could not come close.
It’s always a pleasure, pic.twitter.com/ALkCMy1sFD
– @Wimbledon
Williams has spent more than 300 weeks in the №1 rankings, but is currently 1204th in all that free time and therefore needed an invitation from the All England Club to enter the bracket.
“If you play week after week or even every three weeks, every four weeks, there is a little more endurance to the game,” she said. “But with that in mind, I felt I played pretty well on some of them. Not all of them. Maybe some key I could definitely play better. You have to think that if I played matches, I wouldn’t miss some of those points. “
However, Tan was on the verge of winning 6-5 and Williams erased this with a forehand winner – starting seven of seven points, which not only sent the game to a tiebreak, but also put it ahead 4-0 in it.
Still, Tan wouldn’t be meek. She grabbed five consecutive points for a 5-4 lead in the new tiebreak format of the final set, adopted this year by all four major disciplines: first to 10 points, victory by two.
During the crisis, when Williams was so often superior on so many big stages, she hesitated. Tan passed.
The next for Tan is a match from the second round on Thursday against the number 32 Sarah Soribes Tormo from Spain. Sorribes Tormo advanced, beating American qualifier Christina McHale 6-2, 6-1.
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