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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. I'm Matt Katz filling in for Brian who's off today. The US Open is underway at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing, Queens, and every year, this tournament marks an important moment for the tennis world. This year it's bigger than that because it's likely the last US Open for the great Serena Williams.

Williams told Vogue several weeks ago that she plans to step back from tennis sometime after the Open to focus more on her fashion brand and on her venture capital company, Serena Ventures, which aims to put startup money in the hands of women entrepreneurs. Serena and her sister Venus have been trailblazers in the tennis world for decades, and their legacy goes well beyond their win-loss records.

For two black women to so thoroughly dominate a sport like tennis was important, but they dominated not just with skill, but with grace and passion, even when dealing with some of the vestiges of racism that they saw to disrupt. They changed the game forever and inspired so many people who may otherwise have thought that the tennis world wasn't for them. Listeners, if Serena Williams has been a role model to you, an important figure, an inspiration, we want to hear about it. Call 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Tell us what the career of this trailblazing tennis star has meant to you, and more importantly, what does it mean to you that she's retiring and that we're probably watching her final act as a tennis star?

What lessons has her career taught you about your own life? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet us @BrianLehrer. Joining us now to help take those calls and bring us the latest from the Open and more on Serena Williams, closing tennis salvo, please welcome New York Times Sports columnist, Kurt Streeter. Kurt, Thanks so much for joining us today.

Kurt Streeter: Thanks for having me, Matt.

Matt Katz: Kurt, set the scene for us if you can. Catch us up on this tournament, Serena has played two matches so far and from what I can tell on TV, Arthur Ashe Stadium has just been electric. This is a moment.

Kurt Streeter: This is absolutely a moment. It's been a festival out there, and it's all about Serena and this whole tournament, it's all everybody's talking about. It's all, almost anybody cares about really at this point out at the site. The energy, the electricity has just been absolutely phenomenal. That first match that she played, not last night's match, but just the first match I could just see immediately sitting in the stands that the thing that really struck me was-- I'm somebody who's been to a lot of sporting events.

[laughter]

This was probably the most diverse crowd in a pro-big-time sporting event I've ever been to.

Matt Katz: Wow

Kurt Streeter: At a tennis match. Because if you go to a Golden State Warriors game or a Los Angeles Lakers game, a lot of fans of color can't afford the seats, or they're just probably people-watching at home. It's amazing how homogenous and how white, some of the big sports are in the stands, but this was New York. This felt like New York. It was the full range, and it was just exciting beyond belief.

Then last night's match was probably one of the greatest moments in Serena's career, really in terms of-- Obviously, she didn't win the tournament, but the drama people expected when she came into this tournament. That she'd be lucky maybe to win her first match or even a set she'd been playing so poorly and had played so rarely over the last year. Here she is now, she has to be considered certainly one of the favorites to win the title, and that's so Serena.

Matt Katz: She seemed to get stronger and sharper as the night progressed, it was amazing to watch.

Kurt Streeter: Yes. She's 40, [laughs] a mom. Again hasn't played much, has so many other interests, but again, that's sort of Serena in a nutshell as well throughout her career. People count her out, even 10, 12 years ago people were saying, "She should retire, she's done." Then every time she seems to come back with an amazing, almost from the dead, all of a sudden in her career, she'll come back, and have a great tournament. Even in matches, she'll be down, she's just throwing in batches of errors, and she looks lost. Then all of a sudden time after time we've seen it, we saw it again last night, she just hits another gear. When she does man, it's special.

Matt Katz: Yes it is. Let's go right to the phone lines, Ron in East Orange, New Jersey. Hi, Ron. Thanks for calling in.

Ron: Yes. Hi Matt. Thanks for having me on. I agree with what the previous caller did say. I'm a Black teaching pro right here in the New Jersey area and Serena and Venus Richard Williams to death. They made it more acceptable, for a bit lack of a better word. For Black teaching pros, we got a lot of Black kids now playing. Little boys, little girls in the Newark Era, East Orange, Irvington, et cetera. I've been around for a while. I remember when Arthur Ashe had an impact back in the '60s and '70s.

This is similar, it goes even beyond that because Serena has become such a diva in the sport of tennis. It's still a White sport in that, but Black, we're taken more seriously now I think Black teaching professionals.

Matt Katz: That's really interesting. Thanks very much for calling Ron, and thanks for working with those kids and teaching them tennis. That's awesome. Kurt, you know a little bit about this, you were once a young tennis player, and actually, you wrote a beautiful column last year about your experience playing at the US Open with your dad in an amateur doubles tournament, and you happened to meet Arthur Ashe. You were a young Black kid, and that had a lot of influence on you. Can you talk a little bit about the role that Serena's had in diversifying tennis fandom and the tennis experience?

Kurt Streeter: Yes. Certainly, she's had a huge effect on us, of course, we can never forget Venus, which was the subject of my story today. We're content with Serena of course, with her greatness. She's made tennis cool. She's made it acceptable. She's brought in a generation of young Black players, particularly at the top level, particularly on the women's side. We need to see more male, top pros, but you look at the legacy of her with a Coco Gauff right there 17, 18-year-olds and playing right now.

She plays because she saw Serena and Venus and her dad saw Serena and Venus and saw what they did and the way that Serena and Venus believed that they could take on tennis and be the best. Coco's dad said to her, "Look, you can be the best." That's revolutionary in a way. It's not just the black players, all the players of these younger generations, they just admire and look up to, and so many of them started playing because of these two black women. Imagine that, that's just incredible.

All over the world, when they started getting on the tour in the mid-90s, tennis was still very much dominated by American players and Western Europeans. Now it's much more global.

Matt Katz: Thank you.

Kurt Streeter: We need more players from Africa, but we have players from Mainland China, players from Eastern Europe. So many of them say that, "I got into this sport because I was a six-year-old, seven-year-old in Beijing, and I was watching Serena and Venus and I thought I could do it." [laughter] That's not talked about enough. I think just their global reach.

Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm WNYC reporter, Matt Katz. If you're just joining us, my guest is New York Times Sports Columnist, Kurt Streeter. We're talking about Serena and let's go to TK in Rockland County. Hi, TK.

TK: Hey, good morning, Brian.

Matt Katz: Matt, filling in for Brian.

TK: I'm sorry.

Matt Katz: No problem.

TK: I'm sorry. It's just a habit.

Matt Katz: Of course.

TK: Good morning, Matt. I'm sorry about that, man.

Matt Katz: Sure.

TK: I was not a tennis person, and I am still barely a tennis person.

[laughter]

I'm going to be honest. I have watched other people. I've watched James Blake. I've watched Coco. I've watched, oh man, Naomi, different ones. Serena, she locked me in, she always brings the fire, the passion. You know she loves the game. That's what they lost in baseball. You feel like they're there for the money. You know she's there for the passion, the love. She puts it all out every time, every time. You hate when she loses, but she hates when she loses, and you see it, you see it. It's like, "Man, how can you not root for that?"

When you watch her, you are in that game, and that's what brought me into tennis. Her, the fire, the passion, the willingness to just go all out.

I've never in my life seen anybody man or woman serve like she serves. When she's on point, I feel bad for the person on the other side. It's like, "Man, how are you going to return that? What are you going to do?" That match she played last night against the number two player and I felt it. I was rooting for the number two player because I started feeling bad for her, like, wow. She's 20-something years old and this woman is 41 and she's bringing the fire.

Matt Katz: It was awesome. Thank you very much, TK. You're totally right. We're going to keep it going. Let's go to Janet in Brooklyn. Hi, Janet.

Janet: I love Serena because-- I'm going to add Serena and Venus because they got African-American women and many women full figured women making us feel proud of what we look like our bodies, but also Serena's almost near death in childbirth really showed us how Black women, no matter how rich you are, who you're married to, that you are at risk in childbirth and how you have to advocate for yourself in childbirth and that we need support Black women in particular need support in childbirth. That's what I wanted to say.

Matt Katz: Thank you, Janet. Kurt, that's a really good point. She really put that issue of maternal health for Black women on the map.

Kurt Streeter: Absolutely. She's so relatable in that way. She's so relatable in all. You hear it in these comments from listeners, the passion, this issue: she's so human. We've seen, obviously, in that situation, she almost died right after childbirth. That's obviously a very significant problem in the black community's maternal health. She also, by the way, almost died of a pulmonary embolism in 2011, I believe.

Her health issues are something that we see and that we can relate to. Those issues off the court and even when you see her on the court struggle and even some of the ways that she's acted on when she-- It's so relatable in a way. She holds it in with all of her fire and then she-- Sometimes it just gets to be too much and you lose it a little bit. I love that. It's completely different than say, Arthur, who was my great hero.

I was lucky enough to have him as a benefactor, actually, somebody who helped me in my young junior tennis career. Arthur was contained and he was a son of the Jim Crow South where he had to learn to be contained. It was a totally different era. He had to be that way. Serena is not, she's of the people. It's really an incredible thing. Here I am, I'm a guy. I'm biracial, middle class, grew up middle class, light skin comparatively, but yes, when I look at her, I see my grandmother with the same body type, the same skin.

I see my cousins, my sister cousins, I see all of the Black women in my life. That's just a one-off. Again, as I say that, I'm thinking Venus does the same thing to me. Venus is relatable in a whole other way, but it's the full range. It's people who don't come from the same circumstances that I come from, who also feel that connection and probably feel it more deeply. How human is that and it's rare in sports, I think to really see somebody who's-- That full range of humanity through them.

Matt Katz: I want to take one quick caller before I let you go, Kurt. Bobbin in Philadelphia. Hi?

Bobbin: Hi. Can you hear me?

Matt Katz: I can hear you. Yes.

Bobbin: Hey, my name is Bobbin. Thanks for taking my call. A longtime fan. I tricked my wife very subtly into naming my kids Serena and she thought we can name her Serene. I clearly had the intention of Serena Williams. I was a huge fan of her because from the time Steffi Graf was getting ready to retire and Venus Williams was in the game, I was really hoping to follow the sport, but Serena Williams just got you hooked.

I don't know if there was any other word for it. You thought that every game that she came to was just very subtle like was the most that you're going to see, but then she went from like the 105 miles per hour served to like 107, 110. You're talking like 120 miles per hour. This is in the 2007, the2010, then there was nobody competing against her. I think they had to come up with so many strategies to try to defeat her, that it took what domination of seven grand slam titles for her to start to finally lose a stretch.

Matt Katz: Bobbin, that's awesome. I love that you named your kid after Serena. Tell your little Serena hello for us. I really appreciate you calling in. Kurt, what's next? Serena's next match. When? Who? Tell us what's coming up.

Kurt Streeter: First of all, on that last call, I can totally relate and I love it because my 11-year-old son is named Ashe after Arthur. What's coming up for Serena? Look, she can win. Never count Serena out. I said before this tournament started yes, she could lose in the first round, but she's Serena. She could also win the thing. She could make the finals. First of all, for her tonight, there's going to be a great doubles match at nighttime on Prime-Time television with Serena and Venus playing. That's a very rare thing. I don't even know if that's happened to have doubles in Prime Time on Arthur Ashe's Stadium before in early-round matches. Then in singles--

Matt Katz: Then her third-round match is when? On this week, Friday?

Kurt Streeter: Yes. It'll be the next match tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. To be honest, I haven't looked at the schedule. I've been so busy doing other things, but what I would say though, is while she has a chance to win, she's also 40. Her next match could be a dud.

Matt Katz: Right.

Kurt Streeter: It's hard, some days you feel great, and sometimes you can get out of bed.

Matt Katz: It's still fun to watch. We got to run, Kurt, but thank you so much. New York Times Sports Columnist, Kurt Streeter. You can find his writing on Serena Williams and everything else in the Sports of the Time Column. Kurt, thanks so much, man. Really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the Serena show.

Kurt Streeter: Thank you, Matt. I appreciate you.

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