SI:AM | Serena’s Farewell Tour Begins

Plus, why Scott Frost simply isn’t up the task at Nebraska.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I wish I could make it to Queens for Serena’s match tonight.

In today’s SI:AM:

🗽 Serena Williams’s biggest New York moments

⚾ Major baseball labor news

🌽 Scott Frost fails to deliver

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Tonight in prime time: Serena Williams

There’s a chance that by this time tomorrow, Serena Williams’s singles career will be over.

Serena will face Danka Kovinić tonight in her first-round match at the U.S. Open, scheduled to start at 7 p.m. ET. After the announcement that this will be her final tournament, every match is win or go home—for good. (She’s also competing in the women’s doubles tournament with her sister Venus.)

Williams wouldn’t typically sweat facing the 80th-ranked player in the world, who hasn’t won a WTA singles match since the second round of this year’s French Open. But she’s had her own struggles this year. Williams has played only four singles matches in 2022: a first-round loss to Harmony Tan at Wimbledon, a win over Nuria Párrizas Díaz in Toronto, a loss to Belinda Bencic in the second round of that tournament and a loss to Emma Raducanu in Cincinnati. It’s more than possible that fans need to be ready to say goodbye to Serena tonight.

No matter when she walks off the court for the final time—whether it’s after the first round or the final—New York is a perfect place to do it. Flushing Meadows has been the site of so many defining moments in her storied career, Jon Wertheim writes in today’s Daily Cover:

In some ways, it couldn’t be more fitting. The U.S. Open is not only Serena’s home Grand Slam, but it also marked her opening salvo, the site of the first of the 23 majors she would win. She’s taken the New York title six times in all and, at a venue christened in Billie Jean King’s honor, has won more matches here (106 heading into this week) than at any other tournament.

Yet the U.S. Open has also been the site of what we might charitably call some of Serena’s most challenging moments. There have been stinging defeats. There have been moments in which she was wronged. There have been moments in which she was in the wrong. Serena’s relationship with the most important tournament in her country is a Janus face, an alteration of mood. Her status update might read: it’s complicated.

From her first Grand Slam championship in 1999 to the controversial final against Naomi Osaka in 2019, Serena’s appearances in New York have never been boring. The only thing that makes this year’s U.S. Open different is the looming specter of life after tennis.

• Daily Cover: Nick Kyrgios Is Tennis’s Most Exciting Player, and Its Most Difficult
• Wertheim’s Draw Breakdown: Who Has Best Path to Title?
• American Men Who Could Make a Run at the U.S. Open
• Coco Gauff, U.S. Women Who Will Set the Tone in New York

The best of Sports Illustrated

To Pat Forde, Nebraska’s choke job against Northwestern was the latest example of how Scott Frost is in over his head. … Rory McIlroy won the biggest check of the PGA Tour season, but as Bob Harig writes, it’s clear that he plays golf for reasons other than money. … The AL Rookie of the Year race is down to two guys excelling for teams that until recently had long been basement dwellers, Nick Selbe writes.

Around the sports world

The MLBPA has taken an important first step toward unionizing the minor leagues. … Aaron Rodgers did a long interview with (who else?) Joe Rogan, in which he spoke at length about his decision not to get vaccinated and how he intentionally misled the media with his line about being “immunized.” … Commanders rookie Brian Robinson was shot multiple times in an apparent attempted robbery. … Hawai‘i won the Little League World Series with a blowout over Curaçao. … Michigan made a somewhat unusual decision about its starting quarterback job. … Steelers star T.J. Watt left the team’s preseason finale with a knee injury.

The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. Adam Wainwright wearing a microphone during pregame warmups.

4. Jets receiver Denzel Mims’s impressive catch in the preseason finale.

3. This outrageous catch by Giants prospect Brett Auerbach.

2. Tyler O’Neill’s go-ahead home run to dead center.

1. Jalen Rose’s horrendous golf swing.

SIQ

On this day in 1925, Yankees manager Miller Huggins suspended Babe Ruth indefinitely and fined him how much?

• $500
• $1,000
• $2,500
• $5,000

Friday’s SIQ: How many games did Paul Molitor’s 1987 hitting streak, the seventh-longest in MLB history, last?

• 38 games
• 39 games
• 40 games
• 41 games

Answer: 39 games. Molitor’s streak began on July 16, the day he returned to the lineup from a hamstring injury. He batted .415 with a .495 on-base percentage during the streak. The Brewers’ record during that time was 24–15.

As the streak continued, the inevitable comparisons to Joe DiMaggio’s 55-game streak began. SI sent Morin Bishop to write about it for the Aug. 24 issue of the magazine. The story’s headline really drove home the DiMaggio comparison: “More Than Halfway There.”

Molitor, though, wasn’t optimistic about tying DiMaggio or even Pete Rose’s 44 games.

“It still seems like a fantasy to catch a streak like Rose’s,” Molitor told Bishop. “If you’re realistic, you realize that each day your chances of it continuing are less and less. I try not to look past one day at a time. It’s fun to think of those things, but one of these days it’ll be over.”

Molitor wasn’t the only guy to put together a long hitting streak that season, though. The day he extended his streak, Aug. 25, Padres rookie Benito Santiago began a hitting streak that would reach 34 games. That streak remains the longest in San Diego history, the longest by a rookie and the longest by a catcher.

From the Vault: Aug. 26, 1985

​​Al Tielemans/Sports Illustrated

Jeff Francoeur’s torrid start to his rookie season landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but it seemed too good to be true. The cover text called his debut “impossibly hot” and asked, “Can anyone be this good?”

The answer, of course, was no—but that’s no knock on Francoeur. When Michael Farber’s cover story went to press, Francoeur was batting .370 with a .717 slugging percentage in 34 games while also excelling in the field. But the hot start didn’t last forever. In 27 games in September and October, Francoeur batted .235/.273/.422.

Francoeur wasn’t the only new guy contributing for the Braves, though. When he was called up July 7, he became one of 10 rookies on the Atlanta roster. Several of them (Francoeur, Kyle Davies, Blaine Boyer and Brian McCann) were from the Atlanta area. Other key rookies included Wilson Betemit, Ryan Langerhans and Kelly Johnson.

“These guys have given us a glimpse of the future and a shot of adrenaline,” John Smoltz told Farber. “They’re so excited to be playing the game, they don’t even realize what’s at stake. Especially [Francoeur]. He has set the world on fire. None of us who have been here—Andruw [Jones], Chipper, myself, maybe [second baseman] Marcus Giles—ever had a beginning like these guys. This is surreal.”

With so many rookies playing key roles for a team that went 90–72 and won the NL East, you’d figure it would be the start of something great for the Braves. But no. They didn’t make the playoffs again until 2010. And while Francoeur carved out a successful 12-year career in the majors, he never hit as well as he did during that first month in the bigs. Who could have?

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.

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