On 11 September 1999, a 17-year-old Serena Williams walked onto the sport’s largest stage in New York and walked off as a Grand Slam champion. She defeated world No. 1 Martina Hingis 6-3, 7-6 in the US Open final to claim her first major title — and became the first Williams sister to lift a major trophy.
A final built on words and a big serve
The two weeks leading into the final had been loud. Hingis told reporters the Williams family “have a big mouth,” and the tension only tightened when Serena beat Lindsay Davenport in the semis to reach her first major final, hours after Hingis had survived a three-set scare against Venus Williams.
The moment the match turned — twice
Williams dominated the opening set behind her heavy serve, firing 19 winners and keeping the Swiss on the defensive. In the second set she rolled to a 5‑3 lead and held two match points on her own delivery. Suddenly the pressure gripped her; rallies lengthened, control slipped, and Hingis clawed back to force a tie-break.
In front of a roaring Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd — then the largest tennis arena in the world with 23,000 seats — the two young women played an outstanding breaker. Williams steadied herself, converted her third match point at 7‑4, and the championship was hers.
After weeks of verbal jousting, Williams and Hingis shook hands and embraced at the net. “I didn’t know what to do — laugh or cry or just scream,” Serena told the trophy ceremony, “so I think I did it all.”
Hingis, already a four-time major winner and the youngest-ever world No. 1 at 16, would never win another Grand Slam singles title. For Williams, the breakthrough did not repeat right away — nearly three years passed before her next major — but it opened a career that would eventually hold 23 Grand Slam crowns, a Serena Slam spanning all four titles at once, and a rivalry with Hingis she would lead 7‑6.
A quiet September evening in Queens had just delivered the first true glimpse of a generation-defining champion.
