A swift but emotional farewell

TORONTO • The first stop on Serena Williams' farewell tour came to a quick end as she fell 6-2, 6-4 to Belinda Bencic in second-round action at the Canadian Open on Wednesday, a day after announcing her forthcoming retirement from tennis.

The American arrived to a standing ovation and had the support of the capacity crowd throughout the 77-minute match but was unable to conjure up the magic that helped her lift three titles in Canada.

"It's been a pretty interesting 24 hours... I'm terrible at goodbyes. But, goodbye Toronto," an emotional Williams, 40, told the crowd.

"I always had amazing times here both on and off the court. I'll be coming back just as a visitor to the city but otherwise it's been remarkable."

After the match, Williams was presented with team jerseys of Toronto's National Basketball Association and National Hockey League teams for her and her daughter, Olympia, who was in attendance, as well as a bouquet of flowers that she carried off the court while wiping back tears.

Before the match, a tribute video was played, featuring comments from pioneer Billie Jean King, players like Coco Gauff and Emma Raducanu as well as ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky.

The highly anticipated match was played a day after the 23-time Grand Slam champion revealed in a Vogue article that she was "evolving away from tennis" and planned to retire from the sport she has dominated for over two decades.

"It was a lot of emotions obviously," Williams said about how it felt to take the court. "I love playing here, I've always loved playing here. I wish I could've played better but Belinda played so well today."

Up next for Swiss Bencic will be Spanish eighth seed Garbine Muguruza, who was a 6-4, 6-4 winner over Estonia's Kaia Kanepi.

Among the others reaching the last 16 of the tune-up event for the Aug 29-Sept 11 US Open were world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, defending champion Camila Giorgi, Gauff, Simona Halep, Karolina Pliskova, Jessica Pegula and Aryna Sabalenka.

In New York, ticket retailer StubHub told Reuters that demand for tickets to the US Open spiked in the 24 hours following Williams' announcement that she would retire after the hard-court Grand Slam.

"We typically see demand spike on StubHub when a player announces their retirement, and this is especially the case when it's Serena Williams, arguably one of the greatest players to set foot on the tennis court," a spokesman said.

"Over the last 24 hours, we've seen eight times more sales on StubHub for the US Open than the daily average, but the great news for fans is that the average price paid for a ticket has stayed steady, signalling that there is plenty of inventory for people who want to watch this historic moment in sports in person."

Six of Williams' 23 Grand Slam titles have come at the US Open and she reached the final at Flushing Meadows as recently as 2019.

Serena and sister Venus took the tennis world by storm when they emerged from the courts of crime-ridden Compton, California as teenagers and went on to dominate and change the face of the predominantly white sport.

Williams, who has played only two matches this year, won her last Grand Slam in 2017 at the Australian Open while pregnant with Olympia.

REUTERS

CANADIAN OPEN
Men's q-finals: Singtel TV Ch127 & StarHub Ch211, 11.55pm
Women's q-finals: StarHub Ch201, tomorrow, 1am