This week has been all about Serena Williams and what she has given.
What she has given the game of tennis, what she has given so many female athletes, what she has given Black women.
Thankfully, since she strongly intimated in an essay for Vogue last month that this US Open will be her last, Serena has been celebrated, in much the same way she has played throughout her life: passionately, unapologetically, loudly.
In Cincinnati and Toronto, she was embraced even as she bowed out in the first round of each.
Her reception at those tournaments offered a hint of what was to come at Flushing Meadows, where she has been the artiste of Arthur Ashe, the empress of the evening matches, the queen of the (Billie Jean) King Tennis Center for 20 years.