• US Open, Day 14

A sense of deja-vu

Serena Williams lost her rag with the chair umpire © Getty Images

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Serena Williams was in the process of getting her behind kicked by Samantha Stosur on Sunday when she found herself living a surreal John McEnroe moment.

She already had cracked her racket, lost 12 consecutive points - and the first set - to Stosur when the anger and frustration that slowly had been building was suddenly loosed. Trouble was, she had just stroked a vicious forehand that was going to win her the point and she bellowed "Come on!" before the ball reached Stosur.

That is a classic violation of tennis' intentional hindrance rule, the equivalent of unsportsmanlike conduct in this genteel sport. Chair umpire Eva Asderaki correctly awarded the point to Stosur, who merely got a racket on the ball. That gave her the first game of the second set, a service break that looked for all the world to be the end of her.

It wasn't. In fact, for a while, on this 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it looked like the beginning. For a few games, Stosur looked overwhelmed. She was broken back immediately, and for awhile, Williams seemed destined to win her 14th grand slam singles title.

But the muscular 27-year-old from Brisbane, Australia, playing the match of her life, found an equilibrium. She rallied to beat Williams 6-2 6-3 and the last point, a ripped forehand crosscourt winner, left Williams stumbling.It was an upset of sweeping proportion, only the third title of Stosur's career.

"Yeah," Stosur said, "I think I had one of my best days I was very fortunate to do it on this stage in New York. This was a dream of mine."

Said Serena, "Yeah, she played really, really well. It's good to see I tried my hardest, but she kept hitting winners.

Stosur had crossed the threshold of a major final only once before - the French Open last year - and her failure there gripped her, like a dogged virus, for months. Fifteen months later, this had to feel really good.

It seemed appropriate that Stosur had to weather the longest match in US Open history, in terms of time (3 hours, 16 minutes), in the third round and the longest grand slam tiebreaker (17-15) to arrive at this place.

For two weeks now, many had conceded the US Open title to Williams, who ripped though the field here without really being tested. Her victories over Victoria Azarenka and Caroline Wozniacki were, in some minds, the true finals.

Sam Stosur played the match of her life © Getty Images

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Sunday, however, Serena did not look at all like herself. Stosur was faster, more fluid and far more forceful than Williams. Was it the painful tendon in her right foot? An empty tank after a long layoff and a late Saturday night semifinal finish versus Wozniacki?

Maybe it was just too much Stosur, who like Li Na and Petra Kvitova before her, found a way to win her first major this year.

Serena, who famously threatened to stuff a ball down the throat of the lineswoman who called a foot fault that ended her semi-final match with Kim Clijsters, went fairly ballistic - but stopped short of the expletives that surfaced two years ago. She was after all, in the last match of a two-year probation.

"Aren't you the one who screwed me over last time here?" she asked Asderaki, perhaps confusing her with then-chair umpire Louise Engzell "Do you have it out for me? That's totally not cool."

Later, as her tirade escalated, she defended her right to vent, saying, "We're in America last time I checked." In a final jab, she called Asderaki "unattractive inside." Serena did not shake her hand after the match as is the custom.

According to ITF rules, the chair umpire has the latitude to not make the call if he or she thinks the hindrance was unintentional. Did Serena deliberately hinder Stosur? "No," she said laughing. "I didn't. I thought it was a clear winner.

Does she regret what she said? "I regret losing, but there was nothing I could do," Serena said. "I don't even remember what I said. Sorry. I guess I'll see it on YouTube."

These women's finals at the US Open have gone the two-set minimum for quite some time. The last one to go three sets, the maximum limit, was in 1995, when No. 1 seed Steffi Graf took down No. 2 Monica Seles. The year before, Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario beat Graf in three.

Who would have imagined it would be Stosur to extend the streak? A dozen years ago, Williams won her first US Open title in 1999, beating Martina Hingis in the final. It was the first of three titles for the 17-year-old.

Since then, there have been five other champions -- Kim Clijsters (3), Venus Williams and Justine Henin (2), Svetlana Kuznetsova and Maria Sharapova (1). Where are they now? Clijsters has already retired once and seems destined to step away for good after the 2012 Olympics to be a full-time mother. Venus, now 31, revealed here that she is struggling with an autoimmune disease that will no doubt compromise what is left of her tennis. Henin, after retiring twice, is a reality television star in Belgium. Kuznetsova and Sharapova are still playing tennis, but it is reasonable to assume they won't win another major.

Her lifestyle, focus and devotion to tennis have been widely questioned, but Serena is still standing on the baseline and hitting bombs. Despite the myriad physical setbacks, the yo-yoing in and out of the top 10, the parade of interesting friends and lovers, she continues not just to survive, but to thrive.

"I don't like second place," Serena said later. "But it's going to propel me to work harder."

This article orignally appeared on ESPN.com

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