Should Serena Williams retire from tennis?

[Brad Smith]

The biggest problem facing both Venus and Serena is that the aura of invincibility is gone. Opponents no longer go into matches thinking about avoiding embarassment -- they think they have a chance to win. They play with less fear and they spend more time thinking on court.

As a practical matter, if they want to continue to "play their way" into slams, they have to play more of the other tournaments to get their rankings up. They are playing higher ranked players earlier in slams than they did when they were #1 and #2. Serena and Hantuchova was #13 against #17 in the third round. Had Serena won she'd be playing Sharapova at #4 in the fourth round. Contrast that to Davenport who played #25 in the 3rd round and will face #14 in the fourth round. Clijsters has an injury but she's had an easy draw so far so she hasn't been pushed. Her 3rd round match is against an unseeded player ranked 49. I'm sure Serena would have loved that 3rd round match rather than Hantuchova.

[theoratoruk]

i dont always post on this board but this serena williams topic is interesting,it seems to me that even though she is from the US opinion on the williams sisters is massively divided over there.

All i have to say is this there is no player on the wta tour who can beat a fit and angry serena williams,and you all know that. when aggassi was down and unmotivated (133 in the world) i never heard people telling him to retire, he even went down to challengers.they encouraged him.

Everybody goes on about maria sharapova, in wimbledon last year she got a taste of a fired up williams sister(the weaker venus) that would not be intimidated and it was all over ,she was run run ragged by move power more speed and more attitude,maria was in tears. so please lets be honest and fair and not write post with such clouded viewpoints.

ps; when richard williams gets on the plane as a rule those girls come home with silverware.oracine is no good for business, there seems to be too much shopping going on.lol

[bpt7]

Serena should retire.

so what if ESPN drops the grand slam coverage......then the tennis channel can claim the rights and show a grand slam coverage like it should be shown....live, all day coverage - not to wait for a darn basketball game to finish and then have brad talking for 30 mins waiting for the davenport match to start while other matches are going on live and it's 3-3 in the 5th set

[Jack the Hack]

Originally Posted by Warriorroger

The greatest talent of all time? What else did she have beside power? There is nothing great about her game. Only thing that is great is her bad behaviour and butt.

She is outclassed in every department compared to all the former number ones.

Martina Navratilova (tactical attacking game - dedication to tennis) - Steffi Graf (speedy footwork and most brutal forehand hit by a woman - dedication to tennis) -Seles (raw power and accuracy from both sides - never say die attitude)

If someone ( and they will) wants to make this into an african american role model thing. I rather look at Chanda Rubin or in the past Althea Gibson. Serena will never win a slam anymore.

I assume that you must be referring to Mary Carillo's comments, which I paraphrased earlier in this thread. Carillo said that Williams had the talent to be the greatest tennis women's tennis player of all time, but that she is wasting it with her attitude and poor work habits. In short, she has a gift, and she is throwing it away...

However, as we all know, talent does not gurantee success... especially without focus and work ethic. See Marat Safin.

Serena - at her best - has tremendous power, footspeed, and mental toughness in (arguably) greater amounts that Navratilova, Graf, and Seles. However, the difference is that those women had single minded dedication to tennis and they got the absolute most out of their talents. Serena is only 24 years old and has 7 Grand Slam singles championships (including 4 in a row for the "Serena Slam"), 8 Slam doubles titles, and an Olympic gold medal. If she got into shape and played with focus and desire for the next 6 or 7 years, she would have a chance at winning double or triple the amount of Slams that she has already achieved, and would be considered the greatest ever... but she is throwing that away, which makes me sick!

(I'm not going to compare the asthetics of her game to Federer, but when Serena is in top form, she dominates the WTA in the same manner as Fed does the ATP. However, just imagine if Federer had the same lack of drive... and started showing up at Slams weighing 240 lbs, slapping balls as hard as he could, and b!tching that he just could find his "A" game after losing to guys ranked in the 100s. Everyone would be appalled and disgusted that he was throwing his talent away... and that is what Serena is doing. She may be happy with all the other interests in her life right now, but unless she turns this around, I can't help but think that she will someday look back on this time and wonder what might have been.)

[Moose Malloy]

Jack,
do you think Serena could have been the greatest of all time? I don't. She had 6 majors when she got injured at Wimbledon 2003. Even if she continued to dominate the game for more years after that, I don't think it was ever realistic for her to win as many majors as Graf, Navratilova, Court, Evert.
I certainly don't think it's realistic for any women to play high level tennis into their 30s, which you said you think she can do.

I think her serve, particulary her 2nd, is what made her such a great champion. I had never seen such placement, power, spin from a woman on that shot before and still haven't seen anyone get close to that level since.

[West Coast Ace]

Originally Posted by theoratoruk

All i have to say is this there is no player on the wta tour who can beat a fit and angry serena williams,and you all know that. when aggassi was down and unmotivated (133 in the world) i never heard people telling him to retire, he even went down to challengers.they encouraged him.

Everybody goes on about maria sharapova, in wimbledon last year she got a taste of a fired up williams sister(the weaker venus) that would not be intimidated and it was all over ,she was run run ragged by move power more speed and more attitude,maria was in tears. so please lets be honest and fair and not write post with such clouded viewpoints.

On your 1st point, that's just speculation - and since Serena isn't fit, it's not even worth talking about. And the Agassi point is wrong: a big part of his dropoff was because of a wrist injury and the subsequent surgery.

And I don't recall the Venus - Sharapova match like you do. Venus won convincingly - but at least Sharapova showed up in match shape - and made it to the 2nd week, something the Williams clan, with two entrants, didn't pull off at the AO this week.

Why don't you just get it off your chest? You want to use the 'r' word on us. My favorite player of all time is still Ashe - and I don't hate Serena - I just have a profound Loss of Respect for her - she has a tremendous opportunity and is letting it go to waste. Sad.

[Moose Malloy]

Agassi had wrist surgery in '93, not in '97(I think)
So his dropoff in '97 had nothing to do with an injury. He got married earlier that year & only played 10 events(like Serena last year)
He was very fat at the US Open.

And theoratoruk,
people were telling Agassi to retire. no one, including commentators, thought he could come back, they thought the game had passed him by & he was too caught up in the Hollywood life(sound familar?)
then he lost weight, got back in the top 10, lost even more weight(got rid of Brooke) and got back to #1.

[aRod36]

i think she should take a year off to commit to becoming fit other wise she should retire

get in shape or retire

[Jack the Hack]

Originally Posted by Moose Malloy

Jack,
do you think Serena could have been the greatest of all time? I don't. She had 6 majors when she got injured at Wimbledon 2003. Even if she continued to dominate the game for more years after that, I don't think it was ever realistic for her to win as many majors as Graf, Navratilova, Court, Evert.
I certainly don't think it's realistic for any women to play high level tennis into their 30s, which you said you think she can do.

I think her serve, particulary her 2nd, is what made her such a great champion. I had never seen such placement, power, spin from a woman on that shot before and still haven't seen anyone get close to that level since.

I don't want to turn this into one of those lame "Navratilova vs. Graf vs. Seles for GOAT" debates as there have already been enough threads about that topic in past few months!!! However, for the purpose of comparison to Serena, I will say that Graf won 22 Slam singles titles (the last when she was 30) and Navratilova won 18 Slam singles titles (the last just before she turned 36). Serena just turned 24 a few months ago, so if she got serious, played well until she was 32, and averaged 1-2 Slam singles titles per year for the next 8 years, she would end her career with somewhere between 15 and 25 titles... which would put her in contention for the greatest ever (and she would flirt with the all-time singles record of 24 held by Margaret Court). I've gotten really turned off by her ungracious attitude and unimaginative bashing play, but aside from my personal opinion of her, I think she does have the talent to complete the scenerio above if she wanted it and worked hard.

(She was just as fat and out of shape at the 2005 Australian Open, and was not playing anywhere near her best, but she still won that tournament. I have no doubt that if she was motivated, she could dominate the tour and contend for every Slam title.)

By the way, I think you are correct... if you had to pick one shot that seperated her from the rest of the tour, her serve was it. The other poster seemed to think that she just had power, but my point was that she also has amazing speed and mental toughness when she is in peak form.

[Jack the Hack]

Originally Posted by Moose Malloy

Agassi had wrist surgery in '93, not in '97(I think)
So his dropoff in '97 had nothing to do with an injury. He got married earlier that year & only played 10 events(like Serena last year)
He was very fat at the US Open.

And theoratoruk,
people were telling Agassi to retire. no one, including commentators, thought he could come back, they thought the game had passed him by & he was too caught up in the Hollywood life(sound familar?)
then he lost weight, got back in the top 10, lost even more weight(got rid of Brooke) and got back to #1.

Moose, you right on with the Agassi timeline. Maybe Serena's dalliances with outside interests will prolong her career like it did Agassi's. Andre realized that he was wasting his talent and turned a good career into a great one (by winning the French and completing the career Slam).

This is off-topic, but on the subject of Agassi's wrist surgery, I had heard a rumour that he had the doctors make the incision in the shape of a Nike swoosh so he would have a permanent tattoo/scar of his biggest sponsor on the wrist. If that's true, I wonder if he has modified it to look like the Adidas logo now that he has switch over?

[LafayetteHitter]

As of late it looks like Serena Williams may have been eating too many Big Macs at McDonalds! She looked huge and very out of shape in the recent matches. Mary Carillo saying how she is so agile is a complete joke! She's as agile as a Jeep on an autocross track doing hairpin turns at 90 in the rain while it's 20 degrees outside with ice on the track....no offense to jeep drivers here

[Bones08]

I shows how great she is when she loses a match, and this many people get on her case. She will be back, we heard this from Roland Garros 04 until the beginnng of 05. Then she won a SLAM. Now it's been since mid 05 until current. This question was so stupid. You must think she's great to spend your time with that question. It's amazing.

[PM_]

It’s not so much for potential, because it’s still there. Both the Williams have an abundance of talent and potential.
But if there’s a reason Serena should retire it's for the lack of respect for the game and ultimately, the WTA.
Simply, Serena and Venus need to prepare more for each tournament before showing up. They’re embarrassing the networks, their sponsors, and their fans. While nobody can be certain the true cause for Serena’s weight gain, it’s definitely not an appeasing thing to see.
She’s got to make a choice in this juncture of her career. Retire or get serious and prioritize tennis above everything else.

No longer the diva she is.

[timmyboy]

she has what it takes. just lacks motivation. Give it another year or 2, i say.

[Brad Smith]

Let's be honest. Serena is not as fast as she used to be and it's made a big difference in her game. She used her speed, serve, and mental toughness to dominate women's tennis in 2002 and 2003. I've never thought her groundstrokes were any better than other women in the top 10. They're definitely not as good as Pierce or Davenport and maybe even Capriati. Because of her speed, however, she could usually neutralize her opponent's groundstrokes and put herself in a position to make the most of hers. I also believe that her speed and to a lesser extent her mental toughness took opponent's out of their games from the start. Now that she's lost a step opponents can actually hit winners without painting the lines.

For what it's worth, I was at the match at Amelia Island 2005 when Serena sustained the ankle injury that kept her on the sidelines all spring and that she was still nursing at Wimbledon. She was running back to track down a lob in the corner and she lost her balance and fell. It was not graceful or athletic in any way and it didn't appear to be a freak occurrence. She simply looked awkward in her own body.

[Coria]

This nonsense about the Williams' sisters being so talented is overplayed. They are both talented athletically, with foot speed, agility and explosiveness (when they are in shape).

But, as far as pure tennis players, they are not even in the top 20 of all time. Neither has great, soft hands. Mechanically, they both have had SERIOUS flaws--Venus with her first and especially, second serve, both of their forehands and neither has ever had a great slice.

Martina, Chris and Steffi had far more pure "tennis" talent. Their strokes were more technically sound and they had better hands--especially Evert on her groundies, Graf on her slice and huge forehand and Martina on her serve, slice and touch.

Venus and Serena have usually played SLOPPY, error prone tennis. When they were younger, they got away with a lot of garbage tennis because they beat their opponents into the ground with their power and intimidation. That lasted but a few years. They are done. Their games have not evolved. Their mechanics are still screwy and they have not developed new shots and dimensions in their games. Very overrated "pure" tennis players. Great athletes who sometimes played very good tennis. But not great tennis players as far as consistency, fluidness, creativity, finesse, etc. Most of the time, their matches against each other were flat out awful to watch.

Originally Posted by Coria

Martina, Chris and Steffi had far more pure "tennis" talent. Their strokes were more technically sound and they had better hands--especially Evert on her groundies, Graf on her slice and huge forehand and Martina on her serve, slice and touch.

IMO, Steffi was never pure tennis talent but more like a programmed robot. She was specfically raised for tennis ( turning her pro at 13) by her domineering controlling father Peter to support the family

Steffi achieved so much in tennis due to a weaker competition and a huge break because of the '93 Hamburg Tragedy

Don't get me wrong, Steffi was a GREAT amazing magnificent player during her prime

[brinkeguthrie]

She loves being on ET, the parties, the premieres, the clothing line, etc etc.
Did you see Martina or Steffi do that? No.

Serena is finished. And she only has herself to blame.

Originally Posted by brinkeguthrie

She loves being on ET, the parties, the premieres, the clothing line, etc etc.
Did you see Martina or Steffi do that? No.

Serena is finished. And she only has herself to blame.

Its amazing how the media plays this out. They used to condemn Steffi a LOT for her lack of social skills, businesslike demeanor on court and coldness towards the fans

And here comes a player (Serena) who is the exact opposite of Steffi and yet they still crucify her

[BjornBorg]

Originally Posted by Applez

Its amazing how the media plays this out. They used to condemn Steffi a LOT for her lack of social skills and coldness towards the fans

And here comes a player (Serena) who is the exact opposite of Steffi and yet they still crucify her

Steffi had the personality of a napkin, but she wasn't out there flaunting her image in front of the public, looking like a fool on TV shows, not giving her opponents credit, coming onto the tennis court looking like a kinky freak, letting everyone know how "big" she is--how large a life figure. Serena is a polarizing figure and pisses a lot of people off. She lacks some class and is very irritating.