• Women's draw: the seven rounds in Melbourne

After falling in the semifinal of the Australian Open against

Naomi Osaka

(6-3, 6-4),

Serena Williams

stopped on her way to the locker room to say goodbye to the public, who returned to the Rod Laver Arena after five days of confinement.

The defeat meant that not even the great performance of these two weeks, the best in a long time, had been enough to beat Osaka, the new face of women's tennis.

That he has not conquered a great one for four years and that, near the age of 40, he is running out of time to hunt down

Margaret Court's

record

.

Williams' overwhelming record boasts 23 titles and 39 Grand Slam semifinals in four different decades.

It is the best testimony of his reign.

How far it has come and how far it has spread.

But he hasn't played metal for four years.

The last one was precisely an Australian Open, in 2017 and against his sister

Venus

.

Later she would confess that she played the final two months pregnant.

And that is where the gap opens.

Williams has won 23 of her first 29 Grand Slam finals and since her return she has lost all four she has played.

Two at Wimbledon and two at Roland Garros.

Two against former number one (

Angelique Kerber

,

Simona Halep

) and two against rivals who were not even born when she raised her first big,

Bianca Andreescu

and Osaka herself.

Two in 2018. Two in 2019. None since.

"You can feel it on your shoulders"

All of that was seething under Williams' skin when he went to a press conference after the loss to Osaka.

Nervous?

"No, I wouldn't say she was nervous."

And what has been the difference then?

"The mistakes. Too many mistakes."

Up to 10 with the right in the first set and no winner with a hit that has given him so much.

What has been the key?

"Too many mistakes, easy mistakes. Very, very easy mistakes."

In case it was not clear.

Polite questions until a journalist changed the ball for height.

"It was emotional when you left with a standing ovation and put your hand on your heart. What's going on in your head?"

"I don't know. The Australian crowd is amazing. It was nice."

"There are people wondering if this was goodbye."

And there the first nervous laugh, the first broken word.

"I don't know. And if I was fired, I wouldn't tell anyone," Williams said, looking down and running his hand across the table.

Break ball.

Circulation problems

And while Serena was looking up, narrowing her eyes, stuck on that question, and looking for the bottle of water on the ground, another journalist went up to the network.

"With how well you played to get here, why do you think you made so many mistakes? A bad day?"

And there something broke inside.

Williams swallowed, lowered his head and when he raised it again he could only say a "I don't know" broken through tears.

Even that striking uniform that has been released at this Australian Open speaks of the difficulties it has had in recent years.

It was not a mere tribute to

Florence Griffith

, but a compression suit - she already wore a similar one at Roland Garros 2018, her first big return - to treat the circulation problems that she has been dragging since she gave birth in 2017 in a very complicated delivery. .

As he confessed months later, he suffered a pulmonary embolism that could cost him his life.

"You can feel it on your shoulders"

Serena Williams fights against much more than history, although that,

Novak Djokovic

knows well

, also weighs.

The Serbian will play this Sunday's final against

Daniil Medvedev

or

Stefanos Tsitsipas

in search of an 18th Grand Slam title that will bring him closer to

Roger Federer

and

Rafa Nadal

.

"It is a lot of weight and a lot of pressure. And it doesn't matter what experience you have, you feel it on your shoulders. I can understand what she's going through. But she is a great champion who inspires many athletes, men and women from all over the world. world, and what he is doing at his age is extraordinary, "confessed the Serbian, who referred to as one of the great athletes in history.

Whether he wins that elusive 24th Grand Slam or not, he'll use up all his bullets to do so.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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