It’s safe to say that no sister act has ever been a bigger hit on the New York Stage than Venus and Serena Williams. The two marquee-topping champions have combined for a total of eight US Open singles titles, with Serena capturing six and Venus, two. Leading up to the 2022 US Open, Hall of Fame tennis writer Steve Flink is recounting each of those remarkable title runs. In this installment, Flink recounts how Serena’s season-long dominance in 2013 led to a crescendo finish in Flushing.
Sometimes, major titles are salvaged by top players who simply play their best tennis when it matters the most. Other times, towering champions establish their excellence week-in and week-out over the course of a season. They reach the edge of invincibility, start winning habitually, seldom let their guard down, and thus come in to the Grand Slam tournaments feeling no vulnerability whatsoever.
And so it was with Serena Williams in 2013.
In 2013, Williams was settled into a routine with her coach Patrick Mouratoglou, the Frenchman who started assisting her in the middle of 2012. By the start of the season, Williams was utterly determined to establish her preeminence as the best woman player in the world. She had concluded 2012 at No. 3 in the world despite winning Wimbledon, triumphing at the US Open and coming through as well at the Olympic Games. All she lacked in that campaign was a little more consistency.
She found that reliability—and then some—in 2013. By the time Williams arrived in New York for the US Open, she had turned the women’s game into a personal showcase for her extraordinary talent. She had won eight of 12 tournaments and 60 of 64 matches. To be sure, two of those losses were noteworthy as Williams was toppled in three sets by countrywoman Sloane Stephens in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and by world No. 24 Sabine Lisicki in the fourth round at Wimbledon. Those defeats were stinging, but the fact remained that she had compensated by prevailing at Roland Garros for her second French Open title.
Moreover, Williams had demonstrably improved her groundstrokes by varying her pace and trajectory, as evidenced by the five clay-court titles she captured that season. That would have been next to impossible for Williams prior to 2013, but she had developed a new degree of patience, a larger sense of match-playing purpose, and a fitness level that was first-rate.
No wonder Williams was supremely confident as she went to Flushing Meadows that year. She sorely wanted to defend her title and win a second major singles crown of 2013. She believed, correctly, that she had done all of the hard work preparing for and coming through at tournaments that entire season. She had discovered not just a newfound level of stability, but never before had she exhibited such sustained discipline over the months and across the year. Adding it all up, the professionalism of Williams was allowing her to travel just about anywhere she wanted to go with her game and her aspirations.
The top seed was playing with sharp efficiency from the time she stepped on court for a first-round US Open appointment against Francesca Schiavone, the 2010 Roland Garros champion. Williams obliterated the Italian, 6-0, 6-1. After dismissing her next two opponents at the cost of only seven games in four sets, Williams avenged her Australian Open loss to Stephens, ousting the No. 15 seed 6-4, 6-1 in a fascinating Sunday afternoon clash. Williams surged to 4-2 in the first set, having lost only one point on her serve until that juncture.
But Williams surprisingly served consecutive double faults from 30-30 in the seventh game, allowing Stephens to break back. Soon Stephens was back to 4-4. And yet, Williams managed to win eight of the next nine games to close out a 6-4, 6-1 victory over her countrywoman. One minor Williams lapse was followed by an avalanche of brilliance.
Buoyed by that win, Williams took apart No. 18 seed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, 6-0, 6-0. Her semifinal triumph over China’s Li Na—the No. 5 seed—was almost as impressive. Li had been victorious at the 2011 French Open and was runner-up at the 2013 Australian Open. Be that as it may, Williams surged to a 6-0, 6-3 win over the stylish Chinese competitor.
Williams had made it to the final with awesome ease, losing only 16 games in 12 sets, refusing to let her guard down, treating each and every match like a final.
But the real final was a rematch of the 2012 US Open duel with No. 2 Victoria Azarenka. Azarenka—victorious at the Australian Open for the second year in a row at the start of 2013 and playing the most inspired tennis of her career—realized how spectacularly Williams was playing all year long, but she had been awfully good herself in returning to the title round in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Azarenka’s last three matches prior to the final were all commendable victories; she came from behind to beat No. 13 seed Ana Ivanovic, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, and then removed Daniela Hantuchova and future US Open champion Flavia Pennetta in straight sets.
Moreover, Azarenka had played Williams very tough in 2013, winning two of their three head-to-head skirmishes during the season, including their most recent blockbuster a few weeks earlier in the final of Cincinnati. Azarenka held back Williams, 2-6, 6-2, 7-6(6), after the American served for the match at 5-4 in the third set.
A year before, Williams had rescued herself from 3-5 down in the final set against Azarenka in the US Open final, sweeping four consecutive games in a spellbinding comeback. Now they collided again in an eagerly-anticipated showdown. Azarenka had good reasons to be cautiously optimistic about her chances, but Williams remained heavily favored after her invulnerability all year long.
On top of that, Williams has always been a ferocious competitor who relishes the opportunity to turn the tables on an opponent who has just beaten her. Those circumstances suit her to the hilt.
Both players were first rate in another enthralling final. The wind in Ashe Stadium on this occasion was very difficult to gauge and burdensome throughout the battle. The first set lasted 58 minutes. Azarenka was two points away from winning it with Williams serving at 4-5, 30-30, but Williams dealt with the situational pressure, taking three games in a row to take the set, 7-5. Williams then elevated her game considerably and established a two-service break lead of 4-1 in the second set after Azarenka double faulted three times in the fifth game.
Williams seemingly had the match in hand and the title in her grasp but she lost her serve in the sixth game. She then served for the match at 5-4, but a double fault and a cluster of unforced errors in the tenth game were deeply self-inflicted wounds. Back to 5-5 was a plucky Azarenka. Williams gave herself a second chance to serve it out at 6-5, reaching 30-30. Azarenka then made a stupendous return off a 123 mph first serve from Williams, who then double faulted into the net. A tiebreak decided that set: Williams rallied from 4-6 to 6-6, only to lose the next two points.
Azarenka had willed her way into a third set, but soon ran out of energy and inspiration. From 1-1, Williams majestically captured five games in a row to complete a 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-1 triumph for her second US Open title in a row and a fifth altogether. It was her 17th Grand Slam singles title, leaving Williams now only one behind Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert and five behind Open Era leader Steffi Graf’s total of 22.
Williams should have been a clear-cut, straight-sets winner. She put herself on the brink of success with her big lead in the second set, but wasted that opening uncharacteristically by, perhaps, becoming too aware of the score. Seldom did she allow something like that to happen. But with perspicacity and gumption, with courage and composure, she refused to allow her letdown to become any more than that. In the third set, she moved comfortably in front and closed out the account commandingly.
As Williams reflected on her triumph, she conceded being exasperated by not finishing it off sooner. “I thought [at one point], ‘This is outrageous that I am still out here because I had a great opportunity to win already,'" she said. "So I thought, ‘You know what. I just have to relax, calm down and play smarter tennis.’ The whole match I wasn’t playing smart tennis. I just needed to play better and I did in the third set.”
Asked to set this US Open apart from all the others and to clarify what made it stand alone, Williams responded, “I was so focused these two-and-a-half to three weeks. I was never leaving my room. I was just trying to stay in the zone and stay in the spirit. What’s unique is the fact of finally reaching No. 5 at the Open. That’s pretty cool.”
Williams would win two more titles in 2013 after the US Open, taking 11 tournaments in total over the course of that banner season—by far the most she ever won in any given season. She concluded the year with a 78-4 match record and a career best .951 winning percentage. It was an incomparable year in the astonishing career of Serena Williams, highlighted above all else by her US Open victory.
In the end, Williams simply refused to lose at that 2013 US Open after setting herself apart all year as the sport’s standout player. Her yearlong preeminence made her fifth US Open triumph almost inevitable.
