Ajla Tomljanović made a hilarious joke after she defeated Serena Williams in the third round of the US Open.The Australian tennis star won 7-5 6-7 6-1 against Williams, progressing onto a fourth round encounter against Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova.It is expected to be Williams’s last match, with the 23-time Grand Slam winner announcing last month that she would be “evolving away from tennis”.Tomljanović responded brilliantly when told she was now the last player to beat Williams.“Well, no one is going to pronounce my name right, so that’s going to suck,” the world number 46 joked."But I don't think I've been part of tennis history, so that's pretty cool. I do feel a little bit like the villain.""During the match I was so eager to win. I mean, I wanted to win as much as the next person because I didn't look at her like, Oh, Serena, her last tournament. But then when it ended, it almost didn't feel right."Tomljanovic is now into the round of 16 at the US Open for the first time in her career, having reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon in June.Williams now plans to rest and spend more time with her daughter Olympia, who was born in 2017.

“It’s been really hard on [Olympia], my career,” she said. “So it will be nice just to do that and spend some time with her, do things that I never really have done or had an opportunity to do.

“I have such a bright future ahead of me. I don’t know [exactly what I’ll be doing].

“Also I’m kind of at an advantage because Covid happened. I think everyone shut down for a year. We kind of got to see what our lives would be like if we weren’t playing tennis.

“Then I got injured last year, so I took off literally a year. So I got to see again what every day would be like to wake up and not have to go to the gym.

“So I don’t know. I think I’m definitely probably going to be karaoke-ing.”

Simone Biles, LeBron James and Tiger Woods are among the sport stars to have paid tribute to Williams since her retirement.

“Thank you @serenawilliams for transcending sports for black athletes, female athletes and every athlete 🤍,” Biles wrote on Twitter. “Such a pleasure to watch, thanks for being an inspiration”.