‘Countdown Has Begun’: Serena Williams Says The End Of Tennis Career Is In Sight

By Barry Janoff

Photo: VogueAugust 9, 2022: LL Cool J sang, “Don’t call it a comeback.”

Serena Willams says, “Don’t call it a retirement.”

Serena Williams has confirmed what many people were foreshadowing: the U.S. Open would likely be her last Grand Slam tournament and possibly the last pro tournament of her career.

Williams, now playing in the National Bank Open Hologic WTA Tour Masters 1000 in Toronto, said she and husband Alexis Ohanian want to have a second child (joining Olympia), that her business enterprises are continuing to grow and are taking more of her time and that she is “discovering a different, but just as exciting Serena.”

“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,” Williams, 40, says in the September issue of Vogue, written as a first-person essay but with the byline “as told to Rob Haskell.”

“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.

“I enjoy tennis. But now, the countdown has begun. I have to focus on being a mom, my spiritual goals and finally discovering a different, but just as exciting Serena.”

Although she did not say the Open (Aug. 29-Sept. 11, which she has won six times) would be her last Grand Slam, she strongly indicated that her pro tennis career could conclude in New York.

She also is scheduled to play in the Western & Southern Open just prior the U.S. Open.

“I’m going to relish these next few weeks," she says in the article.

The WTA Tour travels to Europe and the Far East after the U.S. Open, not likely trips for Williams. The only remaining 1000 Masters event on the WTA calendar after the Open is the Guadalajara Open in Mexico in October.

If she decides to compete in another Grand Slam, the 2023 Australian Open is scheduled for Jan. 16-29.

Photo: DirecTVMuch like the Wonder Woman she portrays in a commercial for DirecTV, Williams has been a beacon of strength on and off the court.

Williams currently has 23 Grand Slam titles, one shy of Margaret Court’s record, though none since winning the 2017 Australian Open.

She has 73 career singles titles, 23 doubles titles and four Olympic gold medals, one in singles (London 2012) and three in doubles.

Williams has earned more than $94.5 million in prize money during her career, the most ever among women, according to the WTA.

Concurrently, Williams has built her business resume and sponsorship deals, including a long-term deal with Nike, which began in 2004 that in April saw Nike open a one-million-square-foot Serena Williams Building on the company’s World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR.

Her income was $45.3 million between May 1, 2021 and May 1, 2022, nearly all of it from endorsement and sponsorship deals, according to Forbes. This does not include income from investment deals.

Only Naomi Osaka took in more among women athletes, $59.2 million.

Williams missed significant time on the Tour over the past year following a right leg injury she suffered at Wimbledon in June 2021, followed by rehabilitation, returning just prior to Wimbledon 2022 this past June.

“I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete,” she says in the Vogue article, referring to the fact that she was pregnant with daughter Olympia when she won the  2017 Australian Open. “I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.

“I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family.

“But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter.”

In the article, Williams talks about other successful women tennis stars who left the sport.

Photo: Nike“Ashleigh Barty was number one in the world when she left the sport this March, and I believe she really felt ready to move on. (Barty got married last month.) Caroline Wozniacki, who is one of my best friends, felt a sense of relief when she retired in 2020.

“There is no happiness in this topic for me,” she wrote of retirement. “I know it’s not the usual thing to say, but I feel a great deal of pain. It’s the hardest thing that I could ever imagine. I hate it.

“I hate that I have to be at this crossroads. I keep saying to myself, I wish it could be easy for me, but it’s not. I’m torn: I don’t want it to be over, but at the same time I’m ready for what’s next.”

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