When is the time to stop? This is surely the most difficult question for any elite athlete to answer. Making the decision and taking the step requires courage. No one is prepared to accept the end of his most glorious days after a life dedicated to the cause. Much less the great champions, those installed in Olympus that once seemed to perpetuate themselves in time.
Despite the fact that sports careers are currently dilated, there are no immortal gods. Nor in tennis, no matter how many times one may have had doubts. The racket sport has been dominated with an iron fist in recent decades by a triumvirate made up of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic on the men's circuit. It has been less democratic among women as a result of the absolutist regime established by Serena Williams, the tennis player of the century.
There is no debate about the greatness of the American. Her innumerable records and triumphs endorse her, as well as an aggressive style of play that, together with her sister Venus de Ella, caused a paradigm shift in the circuit. On the other hand, there has been a debate about the need or not to prolong her career so much. Her stubbornness to match or even exceed Margaret Court's 24 Grand Slam titles (she has 23) has taken its toll on her in recent years. Since 2017, when she put tennis on hold because she wanted to be a mother, she has unsuccessfully pursued the long-awaited record that would have made her statistically the greatest tennis player (man and woman) of all time.
About to turn 41 on September 26, it has taken Serena some time to digest that the chances of achieving the desired goal have been diminishing with each defeat. She has lost the last four Grand Slam finals she has played in and since the 2019 US Open she has not had the opportunity to fight for the title. At the beginning of August, Serena Williams announced that it was time to hang up her racket. In the letter published in Vogue magazine, she did not want to talk about "withdrawal", but about "evolution". An evolution that will take her down other paths professionally (fashion and finances) and personally (she wants to give her daughter Alexis Olympia a sister). "There comes a time in life when we have to decide to take another direction."
Although he did not specify an exact date, from his words it is intuited that everything will end where the legend began to be forged. It will be in New York, the city where she saw her shine for the first time in a Grand Slam when she was only 17 years old – in that final she defeated none other than the number one of the moment, Martina Hingis. The stands of Arthur Ashe will be packed from the first round (and as far as Serena goes) to see what has been the most famous athlete on the planet, a tennis player turned cultural icon, a claim for brands and a source of inspiration – hers was Billie Jean King – for thousands of girls who would never have picked up a racket without seeing her play.
And it is that, beyond leading the transformation of women's tennis with their imposing corpulence and physique as never seen before, the Williams broke social and ethnic schemes. Two black girls born into humble families had risen to the top in a rich white sport. Its beginnings were far removed from the reality experienced by most of the circuit.
Venus and Serena learned to play tennis on public courts littered with broken glass, crowded with people dealing drugs in Compton, a California city with a skyrocketing crime rate in the 1980s. Her father Richard and her mother Oracene Price began shaping their daughters' game with little knowledge of tennis, learning from books and videos and establishing their own method. King Richard was convinced that he would make them champions. Also that Serena, the youngest of her five daughters, would be the most successful despite the fact that she lived in the shadow of her sister until she made the leap to professional.
Before their irruption and turning everything upside down, those young women with colored braids were already known. “The Williams sisters had been on the circuit for years, even before playing WTA tournaments. When I saw them train for the first time in Hilton Head (Charleston tournament), with such aggressive tennis, I understood that those girls were going to be champions, ”recalls Conchita Martínez to this newspaper. The former Spanish tennis player, Wimbledon champion in 1994 and Olympic medalist on three occasions, had to suffer it very soon. It was in 1998, at the Rome Masters, when she, that teenager, beat her by a double 6-2. “She was an athlete who reached everything, with a powerful and placed serve. She put a lot of pressure on the rest of her and she rarely sent you a ball that allowed you to attack, ”continues Martínez, current coach of Garbiñe Muguruza.
To think of Serena is to think of Venus too. Fifteen months older sister – still active – was the first African-American to reach number one in the world and throughout her career she has come to embrace seven Grand Slam singles titles. Together they also achieved great milestones. Forming a doubles pair they reached number one, won two gold medals (Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008) and added a whopping 14 majors. This US Open they will be a couple again. The rivalry between the two helped them to be more competitive. Serena always noticed Venus, especially during the formative stage. She did it to learn and avoid repeating her sister's mistakes, more in her focus at the time.
Both changed the history of tennis at the beginning of the century. Everything was praise and success, although there are also episodes of bad memories. The Williams went 17 years without stepping on Indian Wells. The reason? Venus did not take the court in the semifinals of the 2001 edition due to injury and Serena entered the final without playing. In the fight for the title against Kim Clijsters, she received boos and insults from the public. Also in the box, where her father raised his fist between points in the Black Power style for the racist insults they had to endure. Serena won by coming from behind in that match against two opponents: one on the court and one in the stands.
Practically unstoppable with a racket, in 2003 came another of the most difficult moments to overcome emotionally. Weeks after undergoing surgery for a torn tendon in his left knee, he lost her sister Yetunde Price to a bullet in her neighborhood of Compton. Serena transferred that fighting spirit from the matches that characterized her to real life to move forward.
Years passed and new generations arrived, but a tennis player remained immovable at the top of the ranking. If she didn't win tournaments, she was always in the later rounds. One of the Spanish women who was found the most on the other side of the network in the second decade of the century was Carla Suárez. She in seven matches she could never win a set. “Off the court she was surrounded by a special aura and inside it she imposed her physique and her power with great ease. Always out of respect for her, she tried to crush everyone who got in her way, ”explains the former Canarian tennis player, who affirms that there was a time when“ it was practically impossible for them to win ”.
It seemed a matter of time before he surpassed Court. Precisely in Australian lands something would change in 2017. Serena won the Australian Open, her last major, and was one of the record. She did it while pregnant. She was 35 years old and wanted to start a family with her husband Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder and tech influencer). Could she come back and be the same? Other tennis players like Court herself or Clijsters had done it by winning the Grand Slams. The difference is that they had been young mothers. “From that moment on, a different Serena was seen. It is difficult because it means losing almost two seasons between pregnancy, postpartum and then getting in shape, ”says Suárez. And she adds: “After the pandemic we may have seen Serena less competitive, since everything cost her much more; her from training to traveling.”
At Wimbledon and the US Open, in 2018 and 2019, the last trains passed. He fell in all those finals, some did it in bad ways like the one he lost against his heiress Naomi Osaka in Flushing Meadows, facing the chair umpire and calling him a thief for taking a point – his discussions with the umpires cost him harsh economic sanctions in 27 years of career. Some spoke of nerves, others of impotence. Be that as it may, that cost her the complaints of her own audience on a stage where she will now surely be received with a thunderous ovation. It's her last performance. At Wimbledon she returned to play after a year out due to physical problems and fell in the first round. She, too, hasn't fared much better on the North American tour, with just one win in three games between Toronto and Cincinnati. Finish as she ends, she leaves an immense legacy. She “she has reigned in women's tennis with stability and determination. Her strength in all aspects and her love for the sport is hats off. She is going to miss her, ”says Martínez.
