Serena Williams to retire post 2022 US Open? 23 Grand Slam champ drops hint

Tennis legend Serena Williams has revealed in a piece she wrote for Vogue that she is considering retiring from tennis in the coming days. However, the 40-year-old is still hopeful of competing in the 2022 US Open in New York this month. The 23-time Grand Slam winner, who boasts of an 84.8% win record in her career, spoke about her desire to spend more family time with Alexis, her husband and Olympia, her five-year-old daughter. Williams, in the piece, revealed the fact that she wants to become a mother once again.

Williams lamented the fact that had she been a male, she would’ve been able to continue playing. ” I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family”, she writes. Williams won the 2017 Australian Open by defeating her sister, Venus. The champion athlete was pregnant for two months during that time. 

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While stating that she hates using the word “retirement”, Williams prefers to use “evolution”. In the piece she gives a hint of moving away from tennis in the near future, “I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me”. The star, however, is not reluctant to admit she loves entertaining people, “I love the performance aspect of it—to be able to entertain people week after week”.

In her write-up, Williams also praised her sister Venus, and said that being in the latter’s shadow made her the champion she is today, “When someone said I was just the little sister, that’s when I got really fired up”.

Besides her 23 grand slams, Williams boasts of many tennis records, including the most number of Australian Open women’s singles titles, the highest number of US Open titles in the Open era (a record she shares with Chris Evert), as well as being the only tennis player to have won three out of the four Grand Slams at least six times each.

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The legend is, however, not shy to admit her sheer greatness. She writes, “I started playing tennis with the goal of winning the U.S. Open. I didn’t think past that. And then I just kept winning”. The regret of not being able to cross Margaret Court’s 24 grand slam titles also spills over to the piece where she writes, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that record. Obviously I do”.