MELBOURNE — Serena Williams may have won 23 major singles titles and more than 800 matches over her unrivaled career but time, as the saying goes, is undefeated—and time won again here today.
Looking like the 38-year old woman she is, Williams fell, shockingly, in the third round of the 2020 Australian Open to 27-seed Qiang Wang of China, 6-4, 6-7, 7-5—a player she just beat in 44 minutes at the 2019 US Open. All credit to Wang (more on her in moment) but Serena was far removed from her best today. She committed scads of errors (56), she was frequently off balance, and her shots couldn’t find the range when they mattered most.