On September 2nd, Serena Williams announced her retirement from professional competition following her U.S. Open loss to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanović. Williams is 40 years old, and had been playing professionally since 1995. A spectacular 27 year career, she was a professional athlete for longer than she wasn’t. Over the course of her career, she played in 423 ‘Grand Slam’ matches, winning 367 of them. These are both modern-day records. She also holds the records for the most wins in Australian open history with 92, and 108 wins in the U.S. Open, adding a few more this past weekend.
Early in August, 2022 Williams announced that she would be retiring after her next tournament; The U.S. Open. This made the tournament quite the spectacle, as it would serve as a farewell tour for one of the greatest athletes who’s ever lived. According to ESPN, “Monday’s primetime coverage of the US Open averaged 1.75 million viewers on ESPN, including 2.7 million for Serena Williams’ victory over Danka Kovinic — up 279% from last year and easily the largest opening round audience since ESPN began airing the tournament in 2009. The previous high was 1.24 million in 2019.” This goes to show how much of an impact Williams has had on the sport of Tennis. She drew in the largest viewership of any opening round tennis match on ESPN since they began airing the tournaments in 2009. Only a handful of matches have ever been seen by more people; most of which also featured Serena Williams!
It’s hard to talk about the greatest of all time (GOAT) athlete without mentioning Serena Williams. Her accolades and accomplishments are unmatched in her respective sport. She is undoubtedly the greatest female athlete of all time. But recently she has been brought up in discussion with the likes of Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, and Muhammad Ali. This is certainly elite company, and anyone would appreciate being mentioned in the same sentence as these great athletes. But Serena Williams is arguably more dominant in her respective sport than anyone. Not only did she play professionally for 27 years, she played at the highest possible level for 27 years. With grand slam titles coming in 1999 and 2017, Williams’ longevity is unmatched.
Another interesting statistic we can use to make her case for the GOAT is that no other (non-Olympic) athlete has competed, and won while pregnant. Yes that’s right, her most recent Australian Open victory came while 20 weeks pregnant. What makes this feat more impressive is that she didn’t drop a single set. She completely dominated her competition while carrying a human being inside of her. This leads us to the reasoning for her retirement. Serena Williams was featured in an issue of VOGUE magazine detailing her departure from professional competition. It can be largely summarized by the first paragraph in which Williams states “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. 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.”
Serena Williams has decided to retire to further pursue her transition into the business world, acting as an investor with her team known as “Serena Ventures.” She also would like to move on and start a family. Williams is currently married and has a child, who was born following her 2017 Australian Open victory. If we as fans know anything about Serena Williams, it’s that she will succeed by any means. In the future I am sure we will see Serena as a successful business mogul and an even better mom.