Serena Williams says she is ready to retire from tennis after winning 23 Grand Slam titles to focus on having another child and her business interests.
“I turn 41 this month and something has to give,” Williams wrote in an essay published Tuesday by Vogue magazine.
Williams, one of the greatest and most accomplished athletes in the history of her – or any – sport, said she doesn’t like the word retirement and prefers to think of this stage of her life as an “evolution away from tennis, towards other things that are important to me.”
Williams is playing this week in Toronto, in a hard-court tournament leading up to the US Open, the final Grand Slam event of the year, which begins in New York on August 29.
The American has won more Grand Slam singles titles in the professional era than any other woman or man. Only one player, Margaret Court, collected more, 24, although she earned some of hers in the amateur era.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that record. Obviously I want it. But day after day I don’t really think about her. If I’m in a Grand Slam final, then yeah, I’m thinking about that record,” Williams said. “Maybe I was thinking about it too much and it didn’t help. I think I should have had 30-plus Grand Slams.”
I never wanted to choose between tennis and family. I don’t think it’s fair.—American tennis player Serena Williams
But Williams went on to write, “These days, if I have to choose between building my tennis resume and building my family, I choose the latter.”
Off tour for a year
She and her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, have a daughter, Olympia, who turns 5 on September 1.
“Believe me, I never wanted to choose between tennis and family. I don’t think it’s fair,” said Williams, who was pregnant when she won the 2017 Australian Open for her last Grand Slam trophy. “If I were a man, I wouldn’t be writing this because I would be playing and winning while my wife did the physical labor of growing our family.”
Williams was off the tour for about a year after injuring herself during her first-round match at Wimbledon in 2021. She returned to singles competition at the All England Club this June and lost in the first round.
After that defeat, Williams was asked if she would compete again.
“That’s a question I can’t answer,” she said at the time. “I do not know. … Who knows? Who knows where I’ll pop up?’
Williams hints in the essay that the US Open will be her last tournament, but doesn’t say so.
“I’m not looking for some ceremonial, final moment on the court,” Williams wrote. “I’m terrible at saying goodbye, the worst in the world.”
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