All-time great Serena Williams says she is “evolving away from tennis” as she hinted she would retire from the sport after playing the US Open.
“I have never liked the word retirement,” Williams wrote in a Vogue article, headlined: “Farewell to tennis on her own terms – and in her own words.”
“It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. 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.”
She added: “I don’t want it to be over, but at the same time I’m ready for what’s next.”
Williams, 40, has won 23 singles Grand Slam titles and is considered by many the best to have ever played the sport. The US Open starts on 29 August in New York.
For the last year, Williams and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, have been trying for another baby, she wrote. She claimed Olympia is eager to be a big sister.
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“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.”
