Serena Williams has announced that she will retire from tennis within weeks, with the forthcoming US Open potentially the last port of call on a journey that has earned her 23 grand slam titles and an indelible place in sporting history.
Faced with a choice between family and career, Williams said in a column for the September edition of Vogue magazine that she has opted for the former, and the possibility of having a second child with her husband Alexis Ohanian.
The American, 40, who suffered a life-threatening pulmonary embolism following the birth of her daughter Olympia five years ago, said she did not wish to be pregnant as an athlete for a second time, and needed to be “two feet into tennis or two feet out”, depending on where her priorities lay.
“I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family,” wrote Williams. “I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labour of expanding our family.
“But I’m turning 41 this month, and something’s got to give.”
Williams has not put a specific date on her departure from the sport she has dominated for more than two decades, but she made it clear in an Instagram post that “the countdown has begun”, adding that she would relish “these next few weeks”. That would seem to suggest that the US Open, where she won her first major title as a 17-year-old, will provide the backdrop for her farewell to the sport.
Perhaps significantly, however, Williams stopped short of using the word “retirement”, suggesting instead that she is “evolving away from tennis”. Time will tell whether she decides to follow the precedent set by Martina Navratilova, who retired in 1994 but later returned to prolong her successful doubles career, winning the Australian and US Open mixed doubles titles. In addition to her achievement in singles, Williams has also won 16 grand slam doubles titles, while three of her four Olympic gold medals came in doubles.
“I have never liked the word retirement,” wrote Williams, who had hinted at her decision to call it quits when she talked of seeing “light at the end of the tunnel” after her first-round win over Nuria Párrizas Díaz in Toronto on Monday. “It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution.”
That evolution will include her continued commitment to Serena Ventures, the California-based venture capital company she founded in 2014. The predominantly female business, which Williams said had played a role in funding a number of successful enterprises including MasterClass, Noom and Tonal, emphasises support for “companies started by women and people of colour”, she wrote.
Williams, who has earned almost $100m in prize money alone, and whose billionaire husband co-founded Reddit, wrote that she was shocked to learn that more than 98% of venture capital goes to men. She outlined her determination to use her business activities to support the ambitions of other women.
“Sometimes like attracts like,” Williams wrote. “Men are writing those big cheques to one another, and in order for us to change that, more people who look like me need to be in that position, giving money back to themselves.”
Williams spent more than a year on the side-lines after tearing a hamstring at Wimbledon last summer, and many feared she would never return to the sport. She revealed that a conversation with Tiger Woods eventually inspired her to return and play at Wimbledon, where she was beaten in the opening round by Harmony Tan of France.
Williams admitted she was “not ready” to win the 24th major that would draw her level with Margaret Court’s all-time record, but said that matching the Australian was not a consuming ambition.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that record. Obviously I do. But day to day, I’m really not thinking about her. If I’m in a grand slam final, then yes, I am thinking about that record. Maybe I thought about it too much, and that didn’t help.
“But I didn’t get there. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. 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. But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter.”