Serena Williams Announces Retirement From Tennis
August 10, 2022
“Why I have never liked the word retirement” – Williams
Serena Williams is stepping away from tennis after the upcoming US Open, although she’s not quite ready to put a firm date on it, or even say the word ‘retirement.’
“I have never liked the word,” Williams wrote in the latest issue of Vogue. “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.
“May be the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution,’ she continued. “I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”
Those “other things,” she explained, are business and family.
For starters, Williams not only wants to spend more time with her husband, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, and their five-year-old, Olympia, but the 23-time Grand Slam singles winner is hoping for another child.
“In the last year, Alexis and I have been trying to have another child, and we recently got some information from my doctor that put my mind at ease and made me feel that whenever we’re ready, we can add to our family,” Williams wrote. “I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”
And then there are Williams’ copious business interests, including her own venture capital firm, Serena Ventures, which raised a reported inaugural fund of $111 million last March. Furthermore, she and sister Venus are both minority owners of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, she’s part owner of a National Women’s Soccer League Team, and she has her own sustainable clothing line, S by Serena.
Furthermore, she has her seemingly endless list of endorsement deals: Aston Martin, IBM, Pepsi, Delta Air Lines, Gatorade and Chase Bank to name only a few.
