SERENA BOWS OUT
Younger Williams sister announces retirement
IT’S hard to imagine a tennis tournament without her. Serena Williams, one of the greatest players the sport has ever seen, is bowing out of the game.
Serena ( 40) has made no secret of the fact she’s struggling with the challenges of motherhood as much as any woman – the exhaustion, the feelings of inadequacy and the pressure to do it all.
Now she’s “evolving away from tennis” to focus on her family, she says.
In a candid essay penned for Vogue magazine, the tennis star says she never wanted to choose between tennis and a family, but she’s hoping for a second child.
“I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy . . . I would be out there playing and winning while my wife would be doing the physical labour of expanding our family. I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete,” she says.
Serena and her businessman husband, Alexis Ohanian, have a five-year-old daughter, Olympia. Serena plans to focus on growing her family and career in venture capital. Her firm, Serena Ventures, invests in companies led by women and people of colour.
She hopes her legacy will go beyond her historic career in tennis. “I admire Billie Jean [ King] because she transcended her sport,” Serena says. “I’d like it to be: Serena is this and she’s that and she was a great tennis player and she won those slams.”