On the surface, it seemed about as conventional as a major final could be.

Serena Williams vs. Caroline Wozniacki in the U.S. Open women’s final.

The world No. 1 and winner of 17 major championships, against the former world No. 1. Both of them regular subjects of tennis chat.

In fact, the final had at least two very interesting angles to it.

–Wozniacki had a chance to win her first major. Before Rory McIlroy and the doomed engagement, Wozniacki was best known for being one of the best players never to win a major. Actually, she had reached the final of only one, at the U.S. Open in 2009. Her winning one now would patch over that void on her resume.

–Serena had a chance to catch Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova for career major victories, with 18 — in the process becoming only the second player (male or female) to win a major singles title after a 32nd birthday, joining Navratilova.

My slight preference was for Wozniacki to win. Answering the “why no major victories” thing must be really, really tiring. Plus, she had been publicly embarrassed when McIlroy broke off their engagement in that brief phone call earlier this year. And she seemed to be dealing with both of those pretty well, so, hell, let her win.

But Serena winning would be a sort of reaffirmation that players are not necessarily done at 30 or 31, which might encourage some of the more familiar faces to hang around a bit longer. Male or female.

Serene won with no problem. Which she often does when things are lined up right. That is, when she is healthy.

Interestingly, it was her only grand-slam victory of the year. She had been top-seeded in the previous three, but went out in the second round, the third round and the fourth round. And at Wimbledon, there had been that weird episode where she seemed dizzy or quite ill and unable to serve, while playing doubles with her sister, Venus.

And tennis pundits and writers, as they are wont to do, set off on backtracking on their most recent “Serena is about done” takes.

Ahmed Rizvi, one of the tennis specialists at The National, reeled off 800 words of Serena praise, and quoted some of the same analysts who, after Serena’s three 2014 slam failures, had suggested she was very near to the end.

John McEnroe said she was the “greatest of all time”, for which a case certainly can be made, even if Steffi Graf won 22 major championships and Margaret Court 24.

At minimum, Serena is very, very, very good. And if she can stay healthy for another year or two, she could catch Graf. Even at age 33 or 34 — which would be good for the tennis world to know. But maybe somewhere along the line, the cheerful Carolina Wozniacki could still slip in there and get one for herself.