This year marks the 50th anniversary of TENNIS Magazine's founding in 1965. To commemorate the occasion, we'll look back each Thursday at one of the 50 moments that have defined the last half-century in our sport.

By 2014, TENNIS Magazine had been covering the sport for 50 years. That fall, though, rather than just writing its history, it may have played a small part in making it.

The tale begins in 2006, when the publisher of TENNIS, Chris Evert, used the pages of the magazine to write an open letter of concern to Serena Williams.

“I’ve been thinking about your career,” Evert began, “and something is troubling me. I appreciate that becoming a well-rounded person is important, as you’ve made that desire very clear. Still, the question lingers—do you ever consider your place in history?”

A glove had been thrown down from one champion to another. Evert, the best American player of her era, had watched Williams, the best American player of hers, appear to lose her focus in what should have been the prime of her career. By ’06, Serena, after rocketing to No. 1 in the early years of the decade, had won just one major in three seasons.

Challenge accepted. Eight years later, as she stood next to Evert on the trophy stand at the U.S. Open, Serena had a definitive answer to Chris’s question. Did she care about her place in tennis history? The answer was a resounding yes.

On that September day in 2014, Williams took her place between two embodiments of the game’s past, Evert and her great rival Martina Navratilova. A few minutes earlier, Serena had joined them on the list of all-time Grand Slam champions by winning her 18th Grand Slam singles title without dropping a set. The victory had also put the capstone on a run of domination that had rarely been seen since, well, the days of Chris and Martina. Even more remarkable was the fact that Serena had done it all after turning 30 years old.

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Since recovering from a health scare in 2011, when she was hospitalized for a pulmonary embolism, Williams has been on the most torrid long-term run of her career, and one of the most torrid by any player. From the start of 2012 through the 2015 French Open, she went 220–17. Over the first 15 years of her career, she won 39 titles; in the last four, she has won 30. Her winning percentage during those four years is 92.8; the highest career winning percentage of any player during the Open era is 89.6, by—you guessed it—Chris Evert.

Of all those Olympian numbers, one meant more than any other to Williams. After her 2014 U.S. Open win, Serena admitted that she had labored under the burden of making it to her 18th Slam title. She typically downplays numbers, like her ranking and her major-title goals, but it was clear on this day that they mattered to her. It was also clear she knew exactly who she was chasing.

“It was definitely on my shoulders,” Williams said of getting to 18. “It was definitely like, ‘Oh, get there, get there, get there.’ Now I’ve gotten there, so now it’s a little bit of a relief.”

“It means a lot to me,” she continued. “You know, I just could never have imagined that I would be mentioned with Chris Evert or with Martina Navratilova, because I was just a kid with a dream and a racquet. Living in Compton, you know, this never happened before.”

It hasn’t stopped happening. A 33-year-old Serena began 2015 by winning her 19th major at the Australian Open, and then won her 20th in Paris and 21st at Wimbledon. Now she has her sights set on making it to Steffi Graf’s total of 22, and possibly beyond.

Right now, nothing, and no one, seems capable of stopping Serena. Wherever she ends up, her place in the game’s history—for who she is, where she came from, and what she’s done—is secure.