An injured Serena Williams can beat a lot of players, but Karolina Pliskova had the weapon to stop her

NEW YORK—This wasn’t as bad as last year.

When Serena Williams lost to Roberta Vinci in the U.S. Open semifinals in 2015, she said that, emotionally, she fell into a “dark place” afterward. She felt like she’d gotten people’s hopes up that she could do something “really great”—i.e., win the first calendar-year Grand Slam since 1988—only to let them down at the very end. As her defeat at Vinci’s hands reverberated around the sports world, Serena cut her press conference short and didn’t appear on a court again for four months.

A year later, when Serena lost in the same round to Karolina Pliskova, 6-2, 7-6 (5), the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium was surprised and somber, but it didn’t feel like the world had shifted underneath their feet, the way it had after the Vinci match. In her presser, Serena was also somber, but not as devastated or tight-lipped as last year. This was a tough defeat, of course. Serena lost the No. 1 ranking, and thus ended in a tie with Steffi Graf for the longest streak of consecutive weeks at No. 1, with 186. Serena also lost a chance to snap another tie with Steffi Graf, at 22 major titles.

Not breaking the No. 1 record will hurt. “I don’t want to talk about that whatsoever,” Serena said. But this defeat was a little more comprehensible than the one to Vinci, for a couple of reasons.

First, as we learned afterward, Serena was playing with an injured left knee. She said she picked it up “after the second or third round,” while her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, said it happened in the third set of her match the previous night against Simona Halep. Serena was definitely off; she made 31 unforced errors in 21 games. After a dismal first set, she fought to find some semblance of her usual form in the second set, but she never did. Serena began the second-set tiebreaker with two backhands that landed 10 feet long. She finished the breaker, and the match, with another backhand long and a double fault.

Initially, like a lot of people, I chalked up Serena’s sluggishness to the fact that she was playing just 24 hours after beating Simona Halep in a three-set quarterfinal. Serena vigorously denied that this had any effect: “I’m not going to repeat myself,” she said, “I wasn’t tired from yesterday’s match.”

It’s true that Serena does, as she said, play on back-to-back days in other events. But it also wouldn’t have been a surprise if a 34-year-old athlete, even one as famously fit as Serena, wasn’t at her sharpest in that situation.

Mouratoglou wasted no time afterward clueing us in on Serena’s real problem.

“It’s impossible to compete without moving,” he said of the effect her knee injury had on her game. “That’s why she missed so much, so many unforced errors, why she was so slow.”

This wasn’t the first time Mouratoglou had broken the news of a Serena injury after a defeat. When she lost to Ana Ivanovic at the 2014 Australian Open, Mouratoglou revealed that she had played with an injured back, leaving Serena no choice but to confirm it in her press conference.

This time, Moutatoglou’s statement quickly shifted the discussion of the match away from the play itself; instead, it centered on whether talking about injuries amounts to making excuses. From my perspective, I respect the old, stoical Aussie adage, “If you go on court, you’re not injured,” and if players don’t want to to talk about their physical problems, I respect that, too. As a fan and a journalist, though, I want to know the truth. If you really were hurt, and it was a factor in a result, I want to know about it. Injuries happen, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.

At the same time, Mouratoglou should leave it up to Serena to decide how much she wants to reveal. Over the years, the friendly Frenchman has become a familiar figure in the ESPN and BBC studios. He gives his take on Serena and other players to ESPN, and has previewed her matches in his own segment, “The Coach,” for Eurosport. Mouratoglou is obviously insightful, and he’s not the only working coach in tennis who has crossed into the media sphere. And as I said, admitting an injury doesn’t equal making an excuse. But Mouratoglou went too far last night when he said that if Serena had been “20 percent less injured, she would have won in two sets.” Did Pliskova have nothing at all to do with the result?

Later, Serena reversed her coach’s assessment, and gave Pliskova her due.

“Karolina played great today,” she said, “I think if she had played any less, then maybe I would have had a chance.”

And that’s the core truth of this match. Against a player who simply put the ball back in the court, an injured Serena could have worked her way into this match, found a groove with her shots, and eventually won it. But Pliskova isn’t a player who just gets the ball back in the court. She hits with pace, as much as pace as anyone on tour, and she hits winners—19 to Serena’s 20 on Thursday. Pliskova made Serena react and defend; that’s not something many players can do.

Most important, the 6’1” Pliskova is one of the few opponents Serena has ever played who can match her serve for serve. Pliskova has hit by far the most aces of anyone on the women’s side this year, and she hit seven to Serena’s five in this one. In her previous round, against Halep, Serena enjoyed an 18 to zero ace advantage. Pliskova won 84 percent of her first-serve points to Serena’s 66. On second-serve points, Pliskova’s percentage dropped all the way to 38. Her first serve was the difference-maker.

This match won’t be remembered the way Vinci match will. It was loss in a season where Serena had already lost twice at Slams before. Any defeat is a disappointment for Serena, but any defeat of hers should also come with a dose of perspective. Ironically, that perspective was delivered, a couple of hours later, from the woman who took over her No. 1 ranking, Angelique Kerber.

“I think I played an amazing year,” Kerber said of her sudden rise to the top. “I mean, it’s my third Grand Slam final now in one year, so I just try to enjoy it.”

Three Grand Slam finals in one year: That’s also what the 34-year-old Serena did in 2016. She may not be enjoying it as much as Kerber right now, but as the German says, it’s still pretty amazing.