An article in Vogue by Serena Williams, an American tennis legend, announced her retirement Tuesday.
Tennis star Serena Williams announced her retirement in order to spend more time with her family.
The thought of having to choose between playing tennis and starting a family has never occurred to me. It doesn’t seem fair to me. Writing this post would not be possible for me if I were a man; instead, I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the hard work of increasing our family. It’s possible that if I had the opportunity, I could become more like Tom Brady,” she wrote in a lengthy post.
To be clear, I enjoy my femininity and the experience of carrying Olympia inside of me. In spite of the difficulties, I was one of those annoying ladies who liked being pregnant and worked right up to the day I had to go to the hospital. And I came dangerously close to doing the seemingly inconceivable when I won the 2017 Australian Open while two months pregnant. This is my 41st birthday, and something has to give.
She continues, “I’ve never liked the word retiring. It doesn’t sound like a word that’s in use now. In my mind, this is a transition, but I want to be careful about how I use that word, which has a very specific meaning to a community of people. What I’m doing right now can best be described as evolutionary. To tell you the truth, tennis is no longer a part of my life and I’m moving on to other things. Since then, I’ve been quietly running Serena Ventures, a venture capital firm. I got married and had a child not long after that. I aspire to expand that clan.
“However, I’ve been hesitant to tell myself or anyone else that I had to give up playing tennis. The subject is forbidden in our household, and Alexis, my husband, and I have barely discussed it at all. Having this conversation with my parents is impossible for me. It’s as if it doesn’t exist until you say it. I feel a lump in my throat and begin to weep when I think about it. My therapist is the only one I’ve actually gone there with! The one thing I won’t do is sugarcoat it. Many people, including myself, have expressed excitement and anticipation about the prospect of retiring, and I wish I had those sentiments. When Ashleigh Barty announced her retirement from gymnastics earlier this year, she was ranked first in the world, and I feel she was ready to move on. Retiring from tennis in 2020 was a relief for Caroline Wozniacki, one of my closest friends.