MASON, Ohio — The Serena Williams farewell tour continues to seem like a fine idea that has come too late in the game.
Since Williams’s announcement in Vogue last week that she would soon retire from the sport that she once ruled, she has played two matches and lost both in straight sets.
Her last hurrahs have so far been sotto voce: grand occasions without matching content. And as Emma Raducanu, last year’s surprise U.S. Open champion, made frightfully quick work of Williams with a victory, 6-4, 6-0, on Tuesday night, the sold-out center court at the Western and Southern Open was often as quiet as a practice court as the nearly 12,000 fans on hand rarely had the chance to cheer the icon they had come to honor.