After more than two decades crushing it on the tennis court, Serena Williams announced she’s ready to hang up her racket.
News broke after Williams penned a moving essay to Vogue magazine titled, “The Hardest Thing.” The decision has lingered for some time, she wrote, but came to a conclusion when Williams heard her daughter answer a question proposed to her from an educational app.
“This robot voice asks her a question: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ She doesn’t know I’m listening, but I can hear the answer she whispers into the phone. She says, ‘I want to be a big sister,’ ” Williams wrote in the beginning of her farewell.
In 2017, Williams was two months pregnant during the Australian Open. While it should’ve been a joyous moment, the pregnancy caused Williams to encounter a near death experience as blood clots formed in her lungs, and she began to lose feeling in her legs.
The four-time Olympic gold medalist said she doesn’t want to use the term “retirement” and insisted this is a transition into the evolution of her next steps. Her love of the sport she started when she was 3 has helped shape her into the mother and woman she is today, she said.
“I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me. 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,” she added.
Her tech investment firm with sister and fellow tennis star Venus Williams invested early in Noom, Tonal, MasterClass and other companies. The venture launched with a $111 million venture capital fund, and “78% of their companies’ portfolios have been founded by women and people of color,” according to GMA.
“But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter,” Williams said. “I’m going to miss that version of me, that girl who played tennis. And I’m going to miss you.”
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