Focused Ferocity by Serena Williams on a Stage She Owns at the U.S. Open

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If there is one tennis showplace that has been Serena Williams’s proving ground, it is Arthur Ashe Stadium.

It was there, amid the swirling winds at the 1999 United States Open, that she caught the public and her family by surprise by becoming the first Williams sister to win a Grand Slam singles title.

It was there that she lost her temper 10 years later, threatening and cursing at a lineswoman who had the temerity to call her for a foot fault. And it was there, with the music blaring on the changeovers and the public yelling, “Come on, Serena,” that she underscored her late-career dominance by winning again, without diplomatic incident, in 2012 and 2013.

It should not come as a shock to learn that she is in position to make it three titles in a row on Sunday. After an unexpectedly up-and-down season, she has had an up-and-up tournament, surrendering no more than three games in any set on her way to the final and surrendering only four in total to Ekaterina Makarova on Friday in a 6-1, 6-3 semifinal victory that required precisely one hour.

Makarova, a gifted 5-foot-9 left-hander from Russia, once upset Williams at the Australian Open, and she often struck the ball with great skill and conviction in this match, too. But Williams was in one of those moods and zones that reduce her rivals to foils.

Focused. Balanced. Calm between points. Ferocious once they began but not to the point that she was blinded by her trademark fury.

“I can say yes, she’s much better than everyone,” Makarova said.

Caroline Wozniacki is the only woman left in New York who can prove that statement wrong.

The final could be an emotionally complex matchup in light of their friendship: deepened by Wozniacki’s support of Williams during her serious health problems in 2011 and by Williams’s support during Wozniacki’s broken engagement to Rory McIlroy in the spring.

But Williams has been dealing with emotionally complex matchups from the beginning, growing up as the understudy to big sister and best friend Venus and eventually finding a way to beat Venus to the biggest trophies.

“If I can play Venus, I can play anybody,” Williams said on Friday.

Their emergence and unconventional path to the top have formed one of the most remarkable sports stories in history. But it is Serena who has climbed the highest, and a victory on Sunday would tie her for fourth on the career list with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, icons from an era when tennis mattered more in the United States, with 18 Grand Slam singles titles.

Rick Macci, the outsider who helped mold her game and Venus’s game at a critical phase in their youth, is not the least bit surprised.