Serena Williams Says Farewell to Tennis On Her Own Terms

August 10, 2022 10:32 AM

I’ve been reluctant to admit that I have to move on from playing tennis. It’s like a taboo topic. It comes up, and I start to cry. I think the only person I’ve really gone there with is my therapist
posted by Etrigan (13 comments total)

God, it is so fucking refreshing to read about someone openly expressing their mixed feelings about something major instead of the relentless toxic positivity that's shoved at us 24/7.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:53 AM on August 10, 2022 [51 favorites]

Tennis is the only sport I've ever followed. And Serena is maybe my favorite ever tennis player. I am also a woman in her forties. And though our lives are not that similar, this hit a nerve for me.

But, y'all, this just kills me:

"Believe me, 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."
posted by thivaia at 11:01 AM on August 10, 2022 [59 favorites]

First it's Magnus Carlsen, and now Serena? It's almost like our champions and celebrities are real human beings, and not just props we watch from our couches for our entertainment. Imagine that.
posted by TreeHugger at 11:03 AM on August 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

Yes, thivaia! I'm a woman in my mid-thirties who followed tennis since I played as a teenager, so I got to watch Serena rise from being just one of the Williams sisters to an absolute legend, with all the big emotions and beads and tennis fashion and catsuits (and racism) along the way. Much as I also love Roger Federer, he never had to worry about balancing his career with having four children. I hope Serena is able to have as many babies as she wants to, and does not go through any more life-threatening complications in the process.
posted by j.r at 11:15 AM on August 10, 2022 [7 favorites]

The Williams sisters are, in my opinion, the most remarkable story in American sport over the last quarter-century. Serena's record is peerless and her impact on the evolution of women's tennis is rivalled only by a handful of historic giants of the game. Maybe that's peerless, too. Hearing what the game meant to her is a treasure.

But even better - the overlap and the boundaries between her profession and her life in all its other aspects...this is such a generous, deep, moving essay.
posted by Caxton1476 at 11:21 AM on August 10, 2022 [13 favorites]

This is a stellar essay. The photo of Serena and Olympia is beautiful and bittersweet at the same time. They're connected, yet Olympia and the concept of family are (not on purpose, naturally) holding Serena back from continuing in tennis.

I have loved watching Serena few the years and wish her peace with this decision and hope she has the successful professional life and beautiful, bold family that she deserves.

Thank you for posting this.
posted by kimberussell at 12:26 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

That was such a powerful, meaningful essay. My only quibble with it was that it wasn't in Sports Illustrated.
posted by Mchelly at 12:44 PM on August 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

(Serena has done some amazing pieces for Vogue already and I hope she'll do more - that wasn't meant to be a slam on Vogue or fashion or Serena as a beauty icon. Just that it shouldn't have been relegated to being a woman's story. It's an athlete's story.)
posted by Mchelly at 12:44 PM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]

God, such mixed feelings reading this as someone trying to "have it all" with my own career and family and in a semipermanent state of rage at how few of my colleagues have to make the kinds of compromises I end up needing to make every day.
posted by potrzebie at 3:24 PM on August 10, 2022 [7 favorites]

Mchelly, fashion writer Amy Odell wrote about Serena's friendship with Anna Wintour on her Substack today. I can't see the whole article because I'm not a paid subscriber, but even the free part is pretty insightful.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 5:09 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's so unfair.

Though I did just think "get a surrogate like the Kardashians?" for the second child....
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:42 PM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

I’m around her age, so what resonates for me is the public vulnerability of mixed feelings - of wanting, and of accepting that in order to get some of the things you want you will have to choose, and that is sad, but also, real and the path to your actual life.
posted by corb at 4:05 AM on August 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

I read this before Williams's remarkable last run at the US Open. I loved that she played doubles with Venus between her second and third singles matches, probably adding to the fatigue that was palpable by the last day, but that's who she is. And yes, as she said, she would not be Serena without Venus.
posted by BibiRose at 9:57 AM on September 3, 2022