At the US Open 2022, Serena Williams should take to the court for the last time in her amazing, unforgettable career. The US star, the greatest tennis player of all time, will hit the hard court of her beloved Arthur Ashe Stadium for the last time in her professional life: a mad thrill for the tournament crowd.
Between the 80s and the 90s the protagonists at Flushing Meadows were Steffi Graf (5 titles) and Monica Seles (2 titles). With the new millennium the stars were 8and some still are!) Serena and Venus Williams (respectively with 6 and 2 titles), Kim Clijisters (3 titles), Justin Henin (2 titles) and Maria Sharapova.
In the last years there has always been a surprising winner; Flavia Pennetta, Angelique Kerber, Sloane Stephens and Naomi Osaka (for two times). Last season there was the surprising final between teh two teenagers Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, won by the British player.
Maria Bueno (4 titles), witnessed the rise of Margaret Smith (5 titles) and Billie Jean King (4 titles), who challenged each other in a heated rivalry. Rivalry between the ’70s and’ 80s that saw Martina Navratilova (4 titles) and Chris Evert (6 titles) as protagonists.
In the 1930s Helen Hull Jacobs (4 titles) preceded the victory of Anita Lizana; the Chilean was the first Latin-American player to win a Grand Slam in women’s singles. between the late ’30s and the end of the’ 50s, other great women’s tennis stars emerged, who wrote pages of important history at the US Open: Alice Marble (4 titles), Pauline Betz (4 titles), Margaret Osborne duPont (3 titles, but she is the most successful US Open player ever with 25 global titles!), Maureen Connolly (3 titles) and Doris Hart (2 titles).
Ellen Hansell was the first winner of the women’s tournament, in 1887. In the first years of life the tournament experienced many winners, including Juliette Atkinson (3 titles) and Elizabeth Moore (4 titles), but the golden period came first, during and after the First World War, when Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman (4 titles), Mary Browne (3 titles), Molla Bjurstedt Mallory (8 titles, record) and Helen Wills Moody (7 titles) dominated the tournament for a period of 21 years.
