New York state of mind

Bianca Andreescu takes a victory lap in the Big Apple after historic U.S. Open win,

It was just a passing remark by the babbling brook that is sometimes Bianca Andreescu, spontaneous teenager. And, oh yeah, Canada’s first singles Grand Slam champion ever.

She was smiling broadly as she revisited her first break of Serena Williams in Game 1, Set 1, after the tennis legend had opened their U.S. Open final with an exclamatory ace.

“I think she double-faulted for me to win the game,” Andreescu said, correctly. “The game plan right from the start was to make her work for every ball, to get as many returns in the court as possible.

“I think she was intimidated a little bit by it.”

Intimidated? In my memory, no opponent has ever described Serena as intimidated. That takes cojones, the kind of brass maybe only an upstart dare deploy with the greatest player ever.

Granted, at almost 38, Williams is edging toward the twilight of her career — if that can absurdly be said about a player who has made the finals of four Grand Slams in the past 16 months. But the landscape is changing. For all the bending of the knee that younger players execute in genuine respect for an icon, they’re not part of the group that has lost and lost and lost to Williams at majors over the last two decades.

She’s not their nemesis. None of the new guard is dragging around a 3-20 career record, the humiliating ledger of Williams’ domination over Maria Sharapova. Still, many of the next generation have felt the sting of Williams’ serve, the sheer amplitude of her reputation. No doubt some hope she would just get on with it already, retire with her mythic dimensions