Serena Williams: The First Of The Quartet Of Tennis Superstars Resigns
Announcing the end of your career in Vogue seems to be becoming a trend. In 2020, Maria Sharapova declared her farewell to tennis in the most famous fashion magazine in the world, so now Serena Williams - she will decorate the cover of the September issue. The US Open (from August 29) will probably be the American's last professional tournament, even if Williams made a very clear statement about it.
Serena Williams, 40, is the first of the quartet of the great superstars of the current tennis era to say goodbye. There has been speculation about the resignation of Roger Federer (41) for ages, Rafael Nadal (36) was close to this year's French Open because of his broken foot, only Novak Đoković (35) is not yet worried. Williams is leading the way, even if she's anything but enthusiastic about it. "I've never liked the word 'resignation'," she writes in a suicide note, explaining that she hardly spoke about it even with her husband, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, "only with my therapist".
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However, she sees her departure more as an "evolution": away from tennis towards other things that are important to her. In addition to her company, especially to her family, daughter Olympia urgently wants a sister. The career of Serena Williams sounds like a Hollywood movie that just came out: King Richard . The rags-to-riches story is not entirely true, the Williams family once voluntarily went to the gangster and drug district of Compton in Los Angeles because Papa Richard wanted to toughen his daughters up on the way to becoming tennis professionals.
She was pregnant when she won her last Grand Slam
His crazy plan had sprung from overhearing a tennis broadcast when the winner was handed a $35,000 check and Richard, after a quick calculation, decided that wasn't a bad deal for a few days of hitting the ball. The rest is tennis history. Serena Williams played her first professional match in 1995 at the age of only fourteen, in 1999 she won her first Grand Slam tournament, on July 8, 2002 she was number 1 in the world rankings for the first time after replacing her sister Venus there. Williams has won 23 major tournaments in singles, only with the all-important 24th it just shouldn't work.
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Why important? The Australian Margaret Court is at the top of the record list with 24 Grand Slam titles in singles, even if this cannot be taken entirely: Court had won eleven times at the Australian Open at times when professional players were mostly not at the Majors were allowed to participate and almost only Australian players played anyway. Nevertheless, and that's why Williams now makes no secret in her farewell letter: she would have liked to have broken this record. "But now if I have to choose between expanding my tennis resume or expanding my family, I'll choose the latter." You have to say: Williams' last Grand Slam triumph came from the Australian Open in 2017, when she was already two months pregnant. After her comeback, she was in four more major finals without being able to take the last step.
Tennis matches by Serena Williams were often great entertainment with unnecessary drama, and in recent years it has also resulted in one or the other private feud with the referee when she was unable to perform or the opponents were better. As in 2018 in the US Open final, in which, after various freaks, warnings and point deductions, she spoiled the pitiful Naomi Osaka's joy at the first big victory. Of course, Williams is more than just a tennis player. She is a mother, a business woman, a style icon, she fights against racism and for women's rights, she is highly revered in the USA, criticism is practically forbidden.
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However, Williams now sees herself as above things, she is stricken with the Lothar-Matthäus syndrome, speaking of herself in the third person. She will now discover "a different but exciting Serena" in herself, she wrote on Instagram. Whether Williams would even play again after her injury-related retirement at Wimbledon 2021 seemed open for a long time. She disappeared from the scene for almost a year, while her long-term coach Patrick Mouratoglou switched to rival Simona Halep.
Does she walk like Sampras or like Agassi?
A few weeks ago, Williams appeared surprisingly at Wimbledon, losing in round 1 to the unknown Harmony Tan. Can she still keep up with the current top troop in world tennis? Williams has never played against the current number 1, Iga Świątek. Williams now says goodbye in her own way, for most athletes it is extremely important not to be slowed down by an injury, but to say goodbye on the pitch. Williams is currently playing at the Toronto tournament, on Monday she won her first match since June 2021. She will then compete in Cincinnati and then at the US Open in New York, where she will whip forward the craziest and most ecstatic sports fans ever. Where you know big goodbyes, especially from the local heroes.
The question is whether Williams will do it more like Pete Sampras or like Andre Agassi. Sampras surprisingly won the title in 2002 after a long dry spell and then didn't play a match again - a perfect end to his career. Agassi had announced his departure in advance in 2006, then, plagued by back pain, played two more spectacular matches before a certain B. Becker (Benjamin, not Boris) retired him. Agassi gave a moving speech on the court about everything that tennis had given him.
And Williams? As always, you can trust her with anything. A dramatic end in round 1. A smooth defeat against a world-class player. Or also: one last big run.
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