Column: Serena Williams’ goodbye at the U.S. Open is off to a memorable start — with plenty of fanfare

Serena Williams won her first-round match in the U.S. Open over Danka Kovinić Monday night and was sent off to a blissful retirement.

Or so it seemed. There were tributes on court from CBS News personality Gayle King and tennis great Billie Jean King, a video highlight reel narrated by Oprah Winfrey and a card stunt from fans that spelled out “We Love Serena” with a heart emoji.

It was one of the sweetest goodbyes you’ll ever see in professional sports, befitting a champion who dominated her sport and helped change tennis for good.

The only problem is that Williams’s career is not over, at least not yet.

She’ll be back in action Wednesday against No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia, a much more difficult match that very well could be Williams’ swan song.

If Williams loses Wednesday, I assume we’ll have another long goodbye, more tributes and video highlights and one last ovation from the adoring crowd before a farewell speech. At least we have a template for what to expect so we can have some Kleenex handy for the real deal.

Hopefully she moves on and creates anticipation for the perfect ending, like Ted Williams hitting his epic home run in his final at-bat at Fenway Park, a moment that inspired John Updike’s classic essay.

But if the U.S. Open treats every match like it did Monday’s, I’m afraid Serena Fatigue could quickly set in. It’s still a Grand Slam tournament, not a miniseries about Williams.

When Williams revealed in Vogue Magazine the U.S. Open would be her last hurrah, you knew it would bring out the warm and fuzzies, much like the end of the career of any great athlete who chooses to announce it beforehand instead of simply walking off into the sunset after his or her final performance.

In this age is that even possible?

Williams assuredly deserves the fanfare, though I’d argue the post-match celebration of her career Monday night was premature. It was almost as if they were ready for her to lose and had to get the celebration in just in case. Only recently did we endure the over-the-top tributes to Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady after his retirement only for Brady unretire and force us to go through it all over again at a date yet to be determined.

The Serena goodbye will be well-scripted to ensure maximum media exposure, just as the Brady farewells were already in the can and ready to air the second he called it quits.

This is the world we live in. Bigger is better.

During Monday’s ESPN telecast, a tweet from LeBron James was displayed on the screen that read: ”Keep that serve going,” followed by a goat emoji. We were informed it was one G.O.A.T. giving encouragement to another G.O.A.T.

That sentiment was expressed as it was a well known fact both James and Williams had been anointed the “greatest of all time,” even as many believe Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player ever and it could be argued Steffi Graf or Martina Navratilova was the greatest women’s tennis player.

Apparently it’s not enough to refer to Williams as the best of her era, one of the greatest ever, or a game-changer in the sport. That would spoil the G.O.A.T. narrative.

I’ve enjoyed watching Williams throughout her career and am rooting for a long run at the Open. There won’t be a more dominant player in her sport for quite some time. Still, her unsportsmanlike behavior during her loss to Naomi Osaka in the 2018 U.S. Open Final left a stain that can’t easily be removed. The sense of entitlement she displayed that day was on par with the worst moments of Bobby Knight, Scottie Pippen or Phil Mickelson.

While that 2018 incident shouldn’t deter us from appreciating her greatness or celebrating her career, it should serve as a reminder that Williams is not as beloved as the glowing tribute from Gayle King suggested. We should be able to appreciate Williams’ career while acknowledging she wasn’t always the most sportsmanlike athlete, just as we accepted Jordan’s mean-spirited treatment of some teammates that was on display in “The Last Dance.”

No one is perfect. Even the great ones have their faults.

But I’m afraid it’s too late for that. The final Serena goodbye is destined to be a tear-jerking, New York-centric spectacle that rivals the farewell of Derek Jeter, with Bill Clinton, Spike Lee, Hugh Jackman and a host of other celebrities on hand to send her off.

That was assured when Williams announced the final chapter in her Vogue essay, referring to it as “evolving away” from tennis instead of retirement.

Whatever you call it, keep a few boxes of Kleenex handy this week, just in case Williams keeps advancing.

There is no question we’re about to see the greatest celebration of all-time.