Over the course of her twenty-seven years in professional tennis, Serena Williams has become one of the best tennis players and one of the greatest athletes in history. With 23 Grand Slam singles titles, 73 total singles titles, and 23 doubles titles, she will undoubtedly remain a renowned player for many, many years to come.
Williams’ retirement from the sport was announced on August 9, 2022 by way of a recent Vogue article entitled ‘Serena Williams Says Farewell to Tennis On Her Own Terms—And In Her Own Words’. She decided to retire after competing in the 2022 US Open, an especially meaningful choice since the US Open was a title that she wanted to win going into tennis and it ended up being her first ever Grand Slam title in 1999.
In the Vogue article, Williams said that she “[has] never liked the word retirement” and that she prefers to say she is “evolving away from tennis.” She wants to have another child, a younger sibling for her newly five-year-old daughter, Olympia. She has started her own venture capital company, called Serena Ventures, that invests in early stage companies to help them get off the ground. Additionally, she has pursued many other interests while still in tennis, having launched her own clothing line and served as an executive producer on the movie King Richard, a film about Richard Williams’ aim to turn his daughters into top tennis players.
She admitted that she is not ready to step away from the world of tennis and wishes that she did not have to. While she does not believe it is fair, she said “if [she had] to choose between building [her] tennis résumé and building [her] family, [she would] choose the latter” (Vogue). Williams was in no way held back by her pregnancy. She won the 2017 Australian Open while two months pregnant and went on to reach four singles finals after giving birth. In addition, she helped change the rules of tennis so that women who took breaks because of pregnancy could return to the sport and keep their former ranking. She had a huge impact on the way people think about female athletes and on women’s tennis as a whole. Christopher Clarey from The New York Times wrote in an article about her retirement: “If you ask anyone on just about any street to start naming women’s tennis players, the first name most would produce would still be Serena Williams.”
She also completely changed the game for Black tennis players and Black women. She was the first Black player since Arthur Ashe’ in 1975 to win a Grand Slam title as well as the first Black woman to win since Althea Gibson in 1958. Coco Guaff, an 18-year-old Black tennis player, said that “Serena Williams is the reason why I play tennis” and that “[she] helped a lot because I saw somebody look like me dominating the game and it made me believe that I could dominate, too.”
Although she was not able to match or beat Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam titles, she is still arguably the best women’s tennis player of all time. Williams acknowledged the record, saying, “I didn’t show up the way I should have or could have. But I showed up 23 times, and that’s fine. Actually it’s extraordinary” (Vogue). In her Vogue article, Williams said, “Over the years, I hope that people come to think of me as symbolizing something bigger than tennis. I’d like it to be: Serena is this and she’s that and she was a great tennis player and she won those slams.” For many people, she has already accomplished that. She is recognized by so many people beyond avid tennis fans and represents so much beyond professional tennis.
I’ve been watching Serena Williams play since I first started watching tennis with my dad over ten years ago. Her matches still stick out in my mind, whether she played incredibly and won, or whether she lost. In the farewell of her Vogue article, she spoke appreciatively to her fans, saying “Please know that I am more grateful for you than I can ever express in words. You have carried me to so many wins and so many trophies. I’m going to miss that version of me, that girl who played tennis. And I’m going to miss you.” I know that I will miss watching Serena Williams on the court. She has attained amazing achievements in the world of tennis and I suspect she will continue to achieve much outside of it as well.
