Serena: I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis
Serena Williams has announced her impending retirement from tennis.
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, who turns 41 next month, hasn't given a definitive date for her departure from the sport, but plans to hang up her rackets in order to focus on her family and business interests.
"I have never liked the word retirement," she said in a piece for Vogue. "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.
"A few years ago I quietly started Serena Ventures, a venture capital firm. Soon after that, I started a family. I want to grow that family."
A must read. https://t.co/NSWDGHzsXK
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) August 9, 2022
Williams, who was two months' pregnant with daughter Olympia when she won her 23rd major singles title at the 2017 Australian Open (surpassing Steffi Graf's Open Era record in the process), admitted that coming to the decision had been far from easy.
"There is no happiness in this topic for me," she said. "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."