Benefiting From Workload, Serena Williams Has No Plans of Slowing The Open final was Serena Williams's 71st singles match this year, of which she has lost four. As it turns out, Serena Williams's fifth United States Open title Sunday had several things in common with her first one, even though they came 14 years apart. For one, she did not celebrate with a night on the town either time. This has been her habit after recent championships because she now prefers a low-key gathering with friends and family. About her first one, in 1999, she said: "I was too young to do anything. I was 17. I just went to the movies. Williams is about to turn 32, having won 4 of her 17 Grand Slam singles titles after her 30th birthday. Earlier this year, she became the oldest woman to hold the No. 1 ranking, accomplishing it largely by playing more tournaments than she has at any other time as a professional. Yet after winning her latest Open title by beating the 24-year-old Victoria Azarenka, Williams said she was not feeling tired, mentally or physically. That is the most amazing thing, she said, that this one had in common with her first Open championship. "I don't know why," she said. I don't feel tired. Whenever I feel like I'm in a position where I don't feel good and I need a break, you won't see me on the tour. I will take that week off to get my mind together. I haven't felt that yet. The Open final was Williams's 71st singles match this year, of which she has lost four, a heavy schedule for someone who usually plays a limited schedule between the Grand Slam events. She has done it, she said, because her goal was to reach No. 1 again, and playing too infrequently was often the reason she slipped from that spot over the years. "I'm having a lot of fun," she said. I still don't play as many as everyone else, but I do play more. I don't want to get to that place where I'm not happy in my work. Honestly, I wanted to be No. In order to get that, you have to play a lot of tournaments. What she found out along the way was that playing more had benefits beyond the lofty ranking. She said it helped her win the French Open and the United States Open this year. "Sometimes, to win those big ones, you have to win the little ones," she said. She said that she did not know if she would continue her heavier schedule, that it would depend on how she felt and if she kept enjoying it. Either way, she does not sound like someone winding down her career. If anything, her success with a heavier workload bodes well for continuing even further into her 30s. She said that she had not changed much about her training regimen or conditioning, and that she believed she had held off the waves of younger and faster players who had come up largely on the strength of her game alone. "My game was actually built from a solid foundation," she said. My dad gave my sister and I a game that could always grow, one we could always improve. We had a power game, but we could develop bigger serves, we could develop more speed. There was just always more that we could do. He was just really a genius in developing that. But what became clear in this Open final is that despite all her success, she still battles her own nerves in the biggest moments. In fact, Williams said she was often more nervous now than when she was younger. Against Azarenka, she nearly came unglued in the second set by unpredictable wind at Arthur Ashe Stadium and her own mental battles. "Some matches, I don't even think, I just start playing," she said. When you're playing for something different, you start to think. I think that's what happened to me in the second set. I started to think way too much. But in the third, I didn't care. When Williams gets to that point, it does not matter that her career now qualifies as an era, that another horde of young players is rising up the rankings and threatening to topple the woman at the top. "I haven't thought of a number or an age when I want to stop," she said. I can tell you this: I don't see myself retiring anytime soon.