Serena Williams, one of the greatest athletes of all time, announced on Tuesday that she will retire from tennis following the 2022 US Open at the end of August.
In a piece she penned for Vogue, as well as in a post on Instagram, the 23-time Grand Slam champion said that while she still loves tennis, she’s ready to move on to new things.
For the last five years, it was no longer a question of if Williams would retire, but when.
In 2017 at age 35, she won Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant with her daughter, but in September she needed an emergency C-section to give birth. She developed a pulmonary embolism following the operation, which kept her in bed for six weeks.
There was speculation then that Williams would retire, but she came back, playing through postpartum depression and while breastfeeding.
She had chances to win a major, but couldn’t get there. Her best chance might have been at Wimbledon in 2021.
Coming into that tournament, she was playing her best tennis since returning from maternity leave. But a leg injury forced her to retire in the first round, and her yearlong absence from tennis fueled speculation that she might never play again. She came back once again in June, though now we know it was just the beginning of her farewell tour.
Even though it’s something she knew was coming soon, the decision to retire was far from easy. In Vogue, Williams wrote that she hasn’t really been able to discuss even the possibility of retirement with anyone, only bringing it up with her therapist.
Serena and sister Venus’s rise as Tennis players have been the subject of a film, King Richard starring Will Smith about the struggles of their Father, Richard Williams to raise them.
Sister Venus was originally thought to be the superior tennis player but the years have proven that Serena is the real deal and at 40 yearls, She will be calling it a day after the US Open at Flushing Meadows, one of her favourite Grand Slam event.
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