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Serena Williams taking the court Aug. 31 at the U.S. Open for her first match in her bid to complete a calendar-year Grand Slam. She lost in the semifinals Friday.Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Richard Williams had just turned off his daughter’s match against Roberta Vinci when he picked up my call.

I had been meaning to check in with Williams for a few weeks. With his youngest daughter, Serena, closing in on history Friday, it seemed as good a time as any to reach out.

I had missed the first set but saw that Serena had won 6-2, and assumed, as so many others did, that she would waltz into the final. Williams had turned the match off in the second set.

“She wasn’t doing that well,” he said in a way that went much deeper than the words he spoke.

He was saying Serena was in trouble; the march to history was in trouble.

I had not seen Williams at the Open. He had not been at Indian Wells and was not at Wimbledon.

Williams said the last time he had attended a match was two years ago at Wimbledon. “I’m not going to go to another tennis tournament, ever,” he said. “I am completely retired. I don’t need to be there anymore. I just think sometimes you’ve put in enough time at whatever you’re doing.”

The reason for calling Williams was to get the perspective of a mold-breaking father-coach who laid the foundation for the success of his daughters Venus and Serena. He is the architect of one of the greatest stories in American sports history.

He spoke of the now familiar story of the sisters’ odyssey from the tennis courts of Compton, Calif.

“When you look at where we came from, Compton, one of the worst ghettos in the world during our time there, this has been more than we could even think of asking for,” he said.

“When I first started talking about Venus and Serena, no one believed it at all. But I never thought that they would go this far. No one thought anyone else in our family could do this.”

After Serena’s shocking 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 loss to Vinci on Friday, her father must have been crestfallen. He wasn’t taking my calls. Presumably he had calls to make, emotions to tend to.

This is a time for journalists, first responders to historic events, to dissect the moment and offer frank assessments of what went wrong in the moment: the unforced errors, the caving in to nerves, the being outmaneuvered by a 300-1 underdog who blocked Serena’s path.

2015 U.S. Open

One of the most difficult things for great athletes to do is to put themselves in a historical context while their careers continue to unfold.

“You don’t put history in perspective until it’s over,” Williams said before the end. “Then you look at it.”

While the daily assessment of Serena will be critical, history will be generous. As it must.

Despite the loss, she has played a pivotal role in breaking open the gender box in which women athletes are often put: the best female player, the best female athlete.

Serena is obviously one of the greatest tennis players ever, possibly the greatest. Her competitive drive has been placed in the same echelon as that of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. She imposes in her sport the intimidating physical dominance LeBron James possesses in his.

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