When Serena Williams cruised into the 2019 US Open semifinals Tuesday with her 6-1, 6-0 victory over Qiang Wang, the other headline of the night was that she had won her 100th career match in Flushing Meadows. At the start of the fortnight, in anticipation of this milestone, a reporter had asked her if she remembered her first career US Open win.
She did not.
“That was, like, eons ago,” she said.
It was 1998, actually. In her post-match press conference after defeating Wang, she was informed by a reporter that her first US Open victim was Nicole Pratt of Australia.
“Wow,” said the 37-year-old Williams, “I do not remember that at all.”
But Williams—who faces No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina on Thursday for a berth in the US Open final—clearly remembered her first-ever professional match, which had taken place three years prior.
Williams was 14 at the time, playing the Bell Challenge in Québec City. She gained entry as a wild card and lost in the qualifying round to an 18-year-old American named Annie Miller. The score was 6-1, 6-1.
“Very bad,” Williams recalled.
“I wasn't ready to play in Québec City,” she said. “In fact, the only reason I played was because, back then, [the] WTA was changing some rules for age eligibility. Unless you played in a certain year, then you can be grandfathered in. I had to play. I definitely wasn't ready.”
That was late in 1995. Williams didn’t play again until 1997, but she said it had nothing to do with being disappointed or losing confidence.
"I don't think so, because I knew I wasn't ready," she said. "Like, I just was doing it so I could play tournaments. But, yeah, I took like a good year-and-a-half, almost two years off before I played again. Then when I played again, I was ready. I actually was ready to play some competitions and stuff. I just so wasn't ready for that other match.”
She’s been ready ever since, at the US Open and everywhere else. If Williams can get past Svitolina, she will tie Chris Evert’s all-time mark of 101 match victories at the Open. She’s already tied with Evert for most US Open titles with six, so two more wins will give Williams sole possession of both marks.
In women’s singles, Williams is in the Top 4 for career match victories in all four Grand Slams. Her 348 total Grand Slam wins is a record that may never be broken; that total is 42 more than the person in second place, Martina Navratilova.
But it’s the century mark in Flushing Meadows that is special to her.
"Well, being American and being able to play in your home Grand Slam is always interesting and fun," she said on court after her quarterfinal win. "I grew up watching the US Open and I grew up always wanting to get here, and then I watched so many great champions come and then Arthur Ashe Stadium opened and I played on it. And it’s like a dream come true. It’s the first place I won one of my 23 Grand Slams, so it’s always something special to come out on this court."
Another US Open title will also give Williams her 24th major championship, tying Margaret Court’s all-time record.
In contrast, Annie Miller—who retired from tennis at age 21, three years after her victory against Williams in Québec—won a total of four Grand Slam matches in the six majors she played. (Her best showing was a third-round appearance in the 1998 US Open, losing to Monica Seles.) Miller’s career includes wins over Lindsay Davenport, Mary Pierce, Kimiko Date and Jana Novotná, but it’s the then-unheralded match against Williams that draws the most interest.
"It's funny because it's been over a decade since I last played professional tennis, so I don't really talk about it much anymore," Miller told ESPNW in 2015. "But my husband and my family obviously know about that match and, for them, it's a huge deal: 'Annie beat Serena Williams.'"
Twenty-four years later, at least based on her quarterfinal win that was over in just 44 minutes, it’s hard to imagine that anyone can beat Serena Williams. She is healthy and focused. If she gets by Svitolina, the highest-remaining seed she could face in the final is No. 13 Belinda Bencic.
Perhaps it is the mark of a champion that Williams remembers milestone losses as much as—if not more than—milestone wins. It fuels her.
It would be fitting that she wins her 24th major in New York, where she won her first. A reporter asked her Tuesday night if she felt it is her tournament to win.
"Yeah, I feel like I'm here to do that," she said.
"We'll see what happens."
