‘THAT GIRL WHO PLAYED TENNIS’
A pertinent question considering the world we’re living in
Whoever says biology is not destiny should look at Serena Williams. I mean, obviously, her parents, and her father more specifically as per the film, had something to do with it. But the spectacular tennis career that propelled her into the hall of sporting alltime greats begins and ends with her remarkable athleticism. The consummate athlete, she has outwitted, outperformed and outlasted most of her contemporaries and all the neophytes of the past 25 years.
She is turning 41 and has just retired by way of an announcement in Vogue. Because why not go out with a sublime cover shoot celebrating what she says she is uncomfortable taking about: her legacy?
“I’d like to say that, thanks to opportunities afforded to me, women athletes feel that they can be themselves on the court. They can play with aggression and pump their fist. They can be strong yet beautiful. They can wear what they want and say what they want, kick butt and be proud of it all.”
The Vogue cover is a fold-out affair. The picture below the masthead is of a Serena who looks like a goddess — proud, terrifyingly beautiful and all powerful, stepping forth from the ocean behind her. She is a timeless hero. Unfold the cover and the great tail of her dress is held up in the arms of her daughter, Olympia. The godlike invocations in that name are not lost on me.
Olympia is five and hiding in the folds of her mother’s dress. This mother, whose alltoo-human biology is testing her. She says in her retirement notice that if she were Tom Brady (the US football star) she would not be writing this farewell. For one, the rapidly advancing nature of sport science is such that it has remarkably prolonged the lifespan of any number of athletes.
So Brady continues to perform at unbelievable levels. But Serena is not Brady, and that is because Brady has Gisele Bündchen to carry the babies for him. Serena, on the other hand, had a starker choice: carry on with the project of supplying Olympia with a little sister or carry on playing for her 24th Grand Slam title. Or as she put it: “I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”
Her letter is kind of heartbreaking. She is not going easily into that great night of retirement. She won a Grand Slam while two months pregnant, but her body gave her a hard time after that high point. She had a life-threatening delivery, blood clots for the second time in her career, postpartum depression, and all the attendant stuff of motherhood.
Not least is her driving perfectionism that resulted in excellent outcomes on the court and, in the five years of Olympia’s life, only 24 hours of separation between the ubermom who breastfed courtside and the sweet creature we see nestled shyly in her mother’s tail feathers. Make no mistake, she is paying a price for the promised family.
And it is existential. She has been unable to talk to her parents or husband about it. Because it is that painful. But it is something only she can decide. To the chagrin, I am sure, of all those who believe women’s reproductive rights can be legislated. She has chosen, but as she heads down that path in the forest, she is still looking back: “I am going to miss that version of me, that girl who played tennis.”