![]() In 2020, she withdrew from the French Open because of a lingering Achilles-tendon issue, which ultimately shut down her season. ![]() A torn hamstring suffered at Wimbledon in 2021 kept her off the court for almost a year. ![]() Williams’s passion for her sport appears to be as vibrant as it was when she began her professional career at 14 years old, but in the past two years, injuries and age have overruled her desire to play. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution.”Ĭaira Conner: Why Serena Williams’s retirement is different 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. “It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. “I have never liked the word retirement,” Williams wrote. In her essay, Williams insisted that she is not retiring. Williams indicated in a first-person essay for Vogue a few weeks ago that she is planning on moving away from tennis following this year’s U.S. An entire generation of women witnessed Williams unapologetically transforming everything within her reach. Think of how Alvin Ailey remade modern dance in his own image. Open match with Danka Kovinic tonight is indeed her last match ever at the Open (or if this is her last tournament appearance, period) Williams can retire knowing that words cannot fully describe what she’s meant for the sport, for women-especially Black women-and for American culture. But that also doesn’t capture the implausibility of two little Black girls from Compton, California, rising to become the top tennis players in the world. She and her sister Venus represent one of the most improbable success stories in American history. Even calling her one of the most dominant athletes in history feels confining. Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player of all time, but that hardly captures her impact.
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