For the first time in 3 months, Serena Williams lost a best of three sets tennis match. Like a lot of her matches during the 2015 season, this one did not disappoint in terms of dramatics. Belinda Bencic of Switzerland outlasted Serena in three tight sets 3-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Serena came out of the blocks focused and firing with her serve and her ground strokes from the baseline in winning a relatively clean first 6-3. She was firing off aces with her serve and was confident hitting her forehand with controlled aggression which set her up for numerous winners throughout the first set in building a 5-1 first set lead. Benic was being overpowered and was over matched early on. Bencic did break Williams after being down 5-1 in the first set, to get it to 5-3, but Williams held in her next service game to take the set 6-3.

In the second set, the tide and the momentum shifted. Bencic became more confident in herself and her game after breaking Serena late in the first set, and she began playing more aggressive tennis. The 18-year-old, who has a game similar to Martina Hingis in using angles and guile, but she possesses more power than Hingis, and was able to push Serena behind the baseline with depth in her ground strokes in the second set. Another tactic she used successfully was hitting behind Serena instead of hitting into the open court. With Bencic establishing her game, she ended up taking the second set 7-5.

In the final set, Bencic frustrated Serena and raced out to a 5-1 lead. While watching the match, something told me to wait for it. I just knew Serena was going to put up a fight even being down 5-1. As she has done time and time again in the past, Serena showed why she is one of the greatest competitors of all time by fighting back and willing herself back on serve at 4-5. Surely while watching, I was thinking to myself and saying, “she’s going to find her serve and run away with the match like she’s done so many times before.” I was wrong this time. The greatest weapon in women’s tennis history was off the entire match, and especially in crucial moments. Serena’s serve faltered and she lost the match on her serve in the final game.

Soon after the match, many people were speculating is this loss a good or bad thing for Serena and her team heading into the US Open, which starts in less than two weeks? People who have followed Serena’s career know that there is no such thing as a good loss with her, because she wants to win all of the time, and she is a perfectionist. I’m of the mind that losing helps an athlete learn from their prior mistakes, and helps them regain focus on what helped them get to a high level. While she doesn’t want to lose at all, this loss can help Serena learn from the match and regain her focus on her game. The first thing she would like to regain control of is her most powerful weapon, her serve. While she did have 16 aces in the match along with 64 winners, she have 12 double faults and committed 59 unforced errors. With one of her most reliable shots, Williams couldn’t rely on her serve in the big moments of the match like she could in the past. That’s definitely something she needs to find heading into the Western & Southern Financial Group Open in Cincinnati this week, and the US Open in New York in about two weeks time. She also needs to fine tune her ground strokes, and clean up her unforced errors if she wants to complete the most celebrated accomplishment in all of tennis by winning the calendar year Grand Slam at the US Open.

Serena and her team have been good at coming back from losses in the past, and I believe she will learn something from this loss and bounce back to have a good showing in Cincinnati this week, and then it’s on to the US Open and the monumental task that will be in front of her. The loss to Bencic takes a little bit of pressure off of Serena in the sense that she has tasted defeat, she won’t be going into the US Open over-confident, and she most likely will be on her toes in New York. If she plays her game, and doesn’t let the occasion and the thought of completing the calendar year Grand Slam and the pressure get to her, she will win the US Open and do something that hasn’t been done since Steffi Graf in 1988, and where only 6 people (man or woman) in the history of tennis have accomplished.

We will just have to wait and see. The US Open begins August 31st on ESPN and The Tennis Channel.