Serena Williams Announces Retirement To Focus On Growing Family

Serena Williams has announced she will “evolve away from tennis” at the conclusion of the US Open as she plans on growing her family.

In a self-penned article in Vogue Magazine, the 40-year-old tennis queen admitted she “hates” the decision.

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“I have never liked the word retirement. It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me,” she wrote.

“I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people.

“Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

“There is no happiness in this topic for me. I know it’s not the usual thing to say, but I feel a great deal of pain.

“It’s the hardest thing that I could ever imagine. I hate it. I hate that I have to be at this crossroads.

“I’m torn: I don’t want it to be over, but at the same time I’m ready for what’s next.”

Continuing in the letter, Williams revealed she had received information from her doctor that put her mind “at ease” and would allow her to extend her family – something that her five-year-old daughter, Olympia, is desperate to see happen in the family.

Williams said she and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, had been trying for over a year to fall pregnant. 

She added she felt if she was a male, she wouldn’t be in the position to have to choose her career or family.

“Believe me, I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family,” she wrote.

“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.”

Williams has won 23 single grand slam titles, the most in the Open Era and only one short of Margaret Court’s all-time record.

With those titles came almost US$95 million in career earnings.

She confirmed her last grand slam event would be later this month at the US Open in Flushing Meadows.

Williams won her first tennis match in over a year on Monday at the National Open in Toronto.

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