Age is a number

 So there's a little left in me.

-- Serena Williams

Or to quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "But I'm not dead yet!"

And so to last night in New York, where Serena, the GOAT, got into the expectations and chewed them all up again. Beat No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit in the second round of the U.S. Open in three sets. Won the first set with an ace; got smoked 6-2 in the second set; sucked it up and smoked Kontaveit 6-2 in the third set.

Kontaveit should have had the edge in a third set. She's 14 years younger, after all. But she's not the GOAT.

No, that's Serena, and she reminded us once again that when you're the GOAT, age is just a number. So here she was, 40 years old now and doing the auld lang syne thing, winning a 2-hour, 26-minute match and pulling women's tennis along with her, same as ever.

A record crowd of 29,959 streamed into the National Tennis Center to watch her match. An average 2.7 million more watched on ESPN. And Celebrity America turned out as if it were a heavyweight championship fight.

Tiger Woods was there. Dionne Warwick. Spike Lee and Gladys Knight and actors Zendaya and Anthony Anderson.

Afterward, athletes from other sports all over the country weighed in on the Magic Twitter Thingy.

"Not done yet @serenawilliams" -- Steph Curry

#(Three goat emojis) #serena" -- Patrick Mahomes

"The Greatest. #ThankYouSerena" -- Allyson Felix

"SERENA!!! @serenawilliams" -- Russell Wilson

"Serena! Amazing! #USOpen" -- Manu Ginobili

"#Serena" -- Khris Middleton

On and on. 

You know when you've reached a place few others ever have or ever will?

When you turn other athletes at the top of their sports into slack-jawed fanboys and girls.

And when you're still doin' what you do long past the time convention says you should be doin' it -- and bring a whole country to its feet in the process.