It’s the end of an era.
The end of a truly dominating and legendary era, we should say.
In an essay for Vogue, released to the public on Tuesday, Serena announced she’s saying goodbye to professional tennis after one final tournament.
The 40-year old has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles over the course of her illustrious career.
“I have never liked the word retirement,” Williams wrote in a cover story for the magazine’s September 2022 issue.
“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.
“I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”
Serena is married to Alexis Ohanian and is the mother to a 4-year-old daughter named Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr.
“There is no happiness in this topic for me,” the four-time Olympic gold medalist continued.
“I know it’s not the usual thing to say, but I feel a great deal of pain. It’s the hardest thing that I could ever imagine. I hate it. I hate that I have to be at this crossroads.
“I keep saying to myself, I wish it could be easy for me, but it’s not. I’m torn: I don’t want it to be over, but at the same time I’m ready for what’s next.”
What will be next?
Serena said she plans to focus on her venture capital firm Serena Ventures and expand her family with Ohanian.
“In the last year, Alexis and I have been trying to have another child, and we recently got some information from my doctor that put my mind at ease and made me feel that whenever we’re ready, we can add to our family,” the superstar admitted.
“I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”
Williams also delved into the differences between genders, noting that Tom Brady can keep playing quarterback through age 45 because never needs to worry about pregnancy.
“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 labor of expanding our family,” she wrote.
Serena’s most recent Grand Slam win was at the 2017 Australian Open — when she was 2 months pregnant.
Most recently, she competed at Wimbledon, where she was eliminated in the first round.
Williams will compete at the U.S. Open in September prior to calling it quits.
If she’s victorious, she’ll be tied with Margaret Court for most singles titles in tennis history.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that record,” the icon wrote.
“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.”
Williams concluded:
“The way I see it, I should have had 30-plus grand slams. I had my chances after coming back from giving birth.
“I went from a C-section to a second pulmonary embolism to a grand slam final. I played while breastfeeding. I played through postpartum depression. 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.”