Serena Williams is stepping away from the tennis court and fully walking into the realm of motherhood and business as she shifts her focus on getting pregnant again and on Serena Ventures.
After 23 Grand Slam titles, the tennis star player announced her retirement in style and her own words and poured her heart out in a self-written Vogue article.
"I have never liked the word retirement," the wife and mother of one expressed. "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."
The 40-year-old revealed that the decision does not give her happiness, though that is not the usual thing to say. She just wanted to be honest in saying that she felt a great deal of pain, stressing that she hates making the decision and being at the crossroad between tennis and other things that matter. She is torn, knowing that deep inside her, she doesn't want to turn her back from that tennis court, but she also knows in her heart that it is time, and she is ready for what's next.
'It's unfair, but something's got to give'
Williams opened up that she and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, had been trying to have a second child for the past year. Their five-year-old daughter, Olympia, is already so desperate to become a big sister that she keeps bringing it up a lot, even in her prayers.
She shared that they recently got a go signal from her doctor that put her mind at ease and made her feel that whenever they are ready, they can already add to their family.
Though excited, she thinks choosing between her favorite sport and her family is unfair. It is the hardest thing she ever had to do, she declared. She was brave enough to directly say that it was unfair. She expressed that if she were a man, she would not have to write the article as she would be busy playing and winning while her wife does the physical labor of growing the family.
And yet she knows that something's got to give, that nobody can have it all. She further said she doesn't want to be pregnant again as an athlete. It's either two feet into tennis or two feet out.
Williams recently won her first match in over a year at the National Open in Toronto. She is confirmed to play at the US Open in Flushing Meadows at the end of the month, which will also be her last grand slam event, News.Com reported.
William's tough call gets praises
Her Vogue article resonated with so many women in sports and beyond.
It can be recalled that so many had labeled Williams as "superhuman,"' especially when she won a major title while she was two months pregnant. Nothing has changed, women are saying, even after she announced her retirement and the reason behind it. She was praised all the more for having the bravery to turn back from something she is good at, paid well, and something she loves so much.
Jo McKinney, 57, a New York advertising executive, empathized with Williams, saying that even her, who sits at a desk and whose body is not taxed by the work at hand, has felt the "searing pulling apart" of (self) towards career, and family. She expressed that she got goosebumps while reading William's article because the latter was able to courageously voice out what a lot is afraid to accept - it's not fair, and something's got to give.
On the other hand, former women athletes have resonated with the dilemma Williams has experienced and showed support for her.
Four-time Olympic champion sprinter Sanya Richards-Ross, who retired after the 2016 Olympics before starting a family, said that she always knew that being an athlete and starting a family was not something she wanted as a woman. She felt that being an athlete was the most selfish role possible because it will always be about you resting, recovering, training, and being a parent is the exact opposite.
Beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings, who was newly pregnant when she won a gold medal in London in 2012 and made the same decision as Williams, stressed that she expected the tennis star player to keep building her legacy. She said Williams had earned every right to stop, breathe and grow her family.
Tennis legend Chris Evert, who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles and retired at 34 and started a family two years later, proclaimed that this was the right time for Williams to make that decision.
She told U.S News, "She's squeezed everything she could out of her game. She's transcended tennis and become a leader on many important cultural, social, and gender issues. She has lived an extraordinary life and will undoubtedly continue to crash the glass ceiling."
