Of course Serena Williams is confident. She deserves to be. And her opponents know that her improving game and overwhelming crowd support make beating her in this U.S. Open all the more difficult.
Serena Williams is almost 41. She did not play competitive tennis for nearly a year, and it showed — truly it showed — at Wimbledon, in Toronto and in Mason, Ohio, the three tournaments where she made painfully brief appearances this summer before arriving in New York for her farewell U.