With 23 Grand Slam singles titles to her name and one of the greatest careers of any tennis player — heck, any professionally athlete — Serena Williams will finally end her storied career after the 2022 U.S. Open.
She revealed the news in a long as-told-to article in September’s Vogue.
But just don’t call it “retirement,” as she said.
“I have never liked the word retirement. 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,” she said. “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.”
And, as she said, she’s not relieved like others in the sport have been when she’s done:
“There is no happiness in this topic for me. 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.”
In Vogue’s September issue, @serenawilliams prepares to say farewell to tennis on her own terms and in her own words. “It’s the hardest thing that I could ever imagine,” she says. “I don’t want it to be over, but at the same time I’m ready for what’s next” https://t.co/6Zr0UXVTH1 pic.twitter.com/YtGtcc18a9
— Vogue Magazine (@voguemagazine) August 9, 2022
A must read. https://t.co/NSWDGHzsXK
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) August 9, 2022
She also added that she and husband Alexis Ohanian are trying to have another child, and that she doesn’t want to be pregnant again as a pro athlete.
