Angelique Kerber was up a set and a break at the Olympics when Leylah Fernandez struck a ball sharply crosscourt that sent Kerber sprinting to her left.

Kerber glides more than runs, and she glided well past the confines of the court and then smoothly struck a flat forehand down the line that landed in the opposite corner with a puff of clay for a winner. The forehand down the line on the move or off the jump is the shot that has won Kerber three Grand Slam singles titles, and Kerber raised her right forearm at the elbow and daintily clenched her fist.

This woman is retiring?

It does seem premature as we watch Kerber’s run through the Olympic draw in Paris and after seeing her coolly work her counterpunching magic in the oppressive heat to defeat Fernandez 6-4, 6-3 on Tuesday.

She is into the quarterfinals, where she will face Zheng Qinwen, and in range of another medal to go with the silver Kerber won in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

But Kerber is having no second thoughts about her surprise announcement last week that this would be her final tournament.

She is 36 and has seen enough evidence in this comeback season to draw definitive conclusions. Before arriving in Paris, she had a 7-14 record in singles in 2023 and had lost four straight matches. Her second serve, never a strength, is ever more a liability. Her court coverage is still remarkable but not quite as phenomenal.

“It feels good,” she said of her choice at Thursday’s draw. “Of course it’s one of the toughest decisions I made, but I will try to enjoy the Olympics as much as I can.”

So far so enjoyable with victories over Naomi Osaka of Japan in round one, Jaqueline Christian of Romania in round two and now Fernandez, the combative Canadian who hustled like usual but failed to find her range when she needed it most.

In their only previous match, Fernandez upset Kerber in the fourth round of the 2021 U.S. Open on her way to a big-surprise spot in the final. But the unseeded Kerber returned the upset this time, and Fernandez, 15 years her junior, will not get a chance to break the tie.

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This tournament truly will be it for Kerber, just as it will be for Andy Murray, another 36-year-old who has won three majors and is headed for the International Tennis Hall of Fame, most likely with Kerber in the class of 2029.

“I think already against Naomi, it was a great win for me,” Kerber said. “But here we are at the Olympics, my last tournament, which is really special, and for me it doesn’t matter against who I am playing. I just want to play good tennis, playing on a high level again.”

When the Olympics are over, she will return to her home and tennis academy in Puszczykowo and raise her young daughter Liana and perhaps a few future champions.

But for now she is still trying to beat the youngsters. Next up Zheng, a 21-year-old from China whose rugged, explosive game can be quite a package. Zheng showed resilience on Tuesday to wriggle free of the rising American Emma Navarro, who twice served for the match in the second set. But Zheng went on to prevail 6-7 (7), 7-6 (4), 6-1.

The Olympics are a big deal in a lot of places but particularly big in China. Her joy was evident and now it will be puncher versus counterpuncher for a place in the medal round.

Zheng, seeded 6th and ranked inside the top 10 since her run to the Australian Open final in January, is the sort of power player that Kerber often drove to distraction at her best. See Serena Williams in the 2016 Australian Open final and 2018 Wimbledon final.

Kerber, who, grew up playing against the wall, has often played like one, holding her spot on the baseline and blunting all the sound and fury directed her way.

“I always say, if tennis was played from the baseline only, Angie Kerber would have been the greatest female tennis player of all times,” wrote Andrea Petkovic, Kerber’s friend and fellow German, in her deeply diverting newsletter Finite Jest. “She has mastered the counterpunching game. You can hit the ball as hard and deep as you can. She will just use your strength, your pace, redirect the ball, and end you. The messed-up part about this is that it almost always feels like you are playing a way more advanced version of yourself. Like an A.I. that uses your best parts and ignores your worst. It is somehow even more soul-crushing.”

It would be nice for Kerber if we could end this story right there, but A.I. is still a work in progress, and the stumbling block for Kerber, then and now, has been the serve. Considering her limitations in that department, her three major titles, 488-291 singles record and 34 weeks at No. 1 are even more of an achievement.

Being left-handed helped her cause. So did her precision and command of slice. But there have still been many times when you watched one of her second serves float into the box and honestly braced yourself for carnage.

Kerber countered all of those full-cut returns she has faced with will and skill: mastering the arts of self-defense, including the squat shot that also helped fellow ninja Agnieszka Radwanska survive and thrive.

Kerber has world-class reflexes and racket-head control, but you can only beat a bazooka with a flyswatter for so long, as Kerber has been reminded repeatedly in what will be her farewell season.

She seriously considered retirement 13 years ago after a losing a string of first-round matches during the 2011 season. She wrote about this in her 2023 autobiography Strength of Will.

“The more I try and force it, the less I succeed,” she said to her mother when sitting at her grandparents’ kitchen table in Puszczykowo, Poland. “I am slowly running out of strength.”

She was just 23, but her mother and grandmother encouraged her to work her way through the rough patch, stop being her “own worst enemy” and do justice to her talent.

It is hard to argue with the results, and here she is in Paris coming full circle to that kitchen table. Since announcing her retirement for real, she has stopped forcing the issue and started letting the shots flow.

“I feel free since I made my decision to retire,” she told German reporters this week.

With the finish line in sight, she is managing the tricky task of gliding through the tape.