JustMy2Cents
Hall of Fame
The greatest female athlete of all time—check that: perhaps the greatest athlete of all time—has been thinking a lot about the reason she’s vowed to hang up her racket for good.
“Olympia doesn’t like when I play tennis,” Serena Williams says plainly about her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. When Williams told Olympia, who turns 5 on Sept. 1, that she was soon to be done with the life that made her an inspiration to millions, Olympia’s reply was as joyful as her mother’s celebrations after so many Grand Slam wins: a fist-pumping “Yes!”
“That kind of makes me sad,” says Williams, leaning forward in her chair in the library of a New York City hotel. “And brings anxiety to my heart.” No kid understands their parent’s absence. But Williams has spent the last few years of her incomparable career tormented by what she’s been sacrificing in order to keep going. “It’s hard to completely commit,” says Williams, “when your flesh and blood is saying, Aw.”
Olympia would also like to be a big sister. One day in August, she blew on a dandelion, wishing for a baby sister. “This is what I have to deal with, on a daily,” Williams says, with the commiseration familiar to all parents of young kids. And yet choosing this path requires a calculus that superstar fathers don’t have to make. Tom Brady, father of three, can retire and unretire at 44; LeBron James, father of three, can sign a two-year, $97.1 million contract extension at 37. “It comes to a point where women sometimes have to make different choices than men, if they want to raise a family,” says Williams, who turns 41 in late September. “It’s just black and white. You make a choice or you don’t.”
Biology may have forced her hand, but Williams insists she’s at peace with her decision. “There is no anger,” she says. “I’m ready for the transition.” She’s thought about what’s next, without knowing how it will feel. Williams will re-direct her curiosity and drive into her investment firm, Serena Ventures. She’ll kindle her spiritual life. She’ll evolve as a mom. “I think I’m good at it,” she says of parenthood. “But I want to explore if I can be great at it.”
Greatness is something she knows well. No tennis player, male or female, has won more major championships in the Open Era—the period starting in 1968 when the Grand Slam tournaments allowed professionals—than Serena Williams. (Australia’s Margaret Court owns the all-time record, with 24 Grand Slams.) Williams earned 10 of those 23 titles after the age of 30, a time when most players retire or plummet in the rankings.
But for all that Williams accomplished on the court, it’s what she has meant off the court that makes her the most consequential athlete of the 21st century, full stop. She, along with older sister Venus, took over a country-club sport with resistance to a pair of Black sisters from Compton, Calif., baked into its DNA. She helped change behavioral expectations for female athletes, and by extension women in all workplaces, by exuding power and passion—and bringing her full self—to her hard-court office. She rewrote the book on body image. When pundits, racists, and no small number of idiots slurred her physical appearance or laughed her off as “masculine,” she doubled down on photo shoots and flexes.
[there is plenty more... quite an interesting read]
“Olympia doesn’t like when I play tennis,” Serena Williams says plainly about her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. When Williams told Olympia, who turns 5 on Sept. 1, that she was soon to be done with the life that made her an inspiration to millions, Olympia’s reply was as joyful as her mother’s celebrations after so many Grand Slam wins: a fist-pumping “Yes!”
“That kind of makes me sad,” says Williams, leaning forward in her chair in the library of a New York City hotel. “And brings anxiety to my heart.” No kid understands their parent’s absence. But Williams has spent the last few years of her incomparable career tormented by what she’s been sacrificing in order to keep going. “It’s hard to completely commit,” says Williams, “when your flesh and blood is saying, Aw.”
Olympia would also like to be a big sister. One day in August, she blew on a dandelion, wishing for a baby sister. “This is what I have to deal with, on a daily,” Williams says, with the commiseration familiar to all parents of young kids. And yet choosing this path requires a calculus that superstar fathers don’t have to make. Tom Brady, father of three, can retire and unretire at 44; LeBron James, father of three, can sign a two-year, $97.1 million contract extension at 37. “It comes to a point where women sometimes have to make different choices than men, if they want to raise a family,” says Williams, who turns 41 in late September. “It’s just black and white. You make a choice or you don’t.”
Biology may have forced her hand, but Williams insists she’s at peace with her decision. “There is no anger,” she says. “I’m ready for the transition.” She’s thought about what’s next, without knowing how it will feel. Williams will re-direct her curiosity and drive into her investment firm, Serena Ventures. She’ll kindle her spiritual life. She’ll evolve as a mom. “I think I’m good at it,” she says of parenthood. “But I want to explore if I can be great at it.”
Greatness is something she knows well. No tennis player, male or female, has won more major championships in the Open Era—the period starting in 1968 when the Grand Slam tournaments allowed professionals—than Serena Williams. (Australia’s Margaret Court owns the all-time record, with 24 Grand Slams.) Williams earned 10 of those 23 titles after the age of 30, a time when most players retire or plummet in the rankings.
But for all that Williams accomplished on the court, it’s what she has meant off the court that makes her the most consequential athlete of the 21st century, full stop. She, along with older sister Venus, took over a country-club sport with resistance to a pair of Black sisters from Compton, Calif., baked into its DNA. She helped change behavioral expectations for female athletes, and by extension women in all workplaces, by exuding power and passion—and bringing her full self—to her hard-court office. She rewrote the book on body image. When pundits, racists, and no small number of idiots slurred her physical appearance or laughed her off as “masculine,” she doubled down on photo shoots and flexes.
[there is plenty more... quite an interesting read]
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