Serena Williams

ISTANBUL: Serena Williams, 23-time grand slam singles champion, hinted at retirement from the sport after this year's US Open tennis tournament, repor...

“Unfortunately I wasn’t ready to win Wimbledon this year. “Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. “I have never liked the word retirement.

Serena Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam champion and iconic tennis superstar for a generation, said Tuesday that "the countdown has begun" to her retirement ...

Tennis legend Serena Williams announced her retirement plans and said that the US Open 2022 will be her last tournament.

Her 23 Grand Slam singles titles place Williams behind Margaret Court of Australia in the combined list of men’s and women’s singles champions of all time. “Unfortunately I wasn’t ready to win Wimbledon this year. Tennis legend Serena Williams has said that she is planning her retirement after the US Open in 2022. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. I have to focus on being a mom, my spiritual goals and finally discovering a different, but just exciting Serena. I’m gonna relish these next few weeks,” Williams wrote. I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me,” she said.

American tennis player Serena Williams kisses her trophy after winning a match (against Martina Hingis. Williams kisses the 1999 US Open title. Getty/Jamie ...

And I'm going to miss you." I'm going to miss that version of me, that girl who played tennis. Serena won the title and instantly ran over to hug her father. "Now I have singles, doubles, actually everything there is to win in tennis. At the 1999 US Open, the 17-year-old starlet produced an astonishing run to lift the title. In winning the singles title at Wimbledon for the sixth time in 2015, Williams secured the second "Serena Slam" of her career. In August, she won her first singles match in 14 months at the National Bank Open in Toronto. The next day, she announced she would retire after the US Open. In winning the tournament in 2020, Williams became the first woman in tennis history to win a professional tournament in four separate decades. At the 2012 London Olympics, Williams became the first and only player in history to achieve that feat in both singles and doubles. A career "Golden Slam" is the name given to the achievement of having won every Grand Slam at least once and an Olympic gold medal. After winning her first singles title at Roland Garros, she went on to win Wimbledon and the US Open that same year, and then the 2003 Australian Open. The victory saw her become the first unseeded player to win the Australian Open since Christine O'Neil in 1978.

Williams's second-round match on Wednesday at the National Bank Open could be her last in Canada, and everyone wants in on it, even the prime minister and ...

She added that she felt “grateful to have gotten the chance to play her and connect with her in some way. “That’s, I think, the place to do it,” she said. “In Toronto, we had a nice conversation going, and at the U.S. Open she said some very kind things to me in the locker room,” Andreescu said. It was the first time Olympia had sat through a full match, and she low-fived her mother — a go-to move when you’re 4 — after her win. Her opponent, Andreescu, approached the sideline and asked the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion if she could give her a hug. She is plainly having fun in Toronto. Over the weekend before the tournament began, she and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, and their daughter, Olympia, went to Medieval Times, the theater show with crowns and swords. “All of the signs were definitely pointing to a U.S. Open retirement. (Canada was founded in 1867, and the women’s tournament started in 1892.) We’d like to thank you for reading The Times and encourage you to support journalism like this by becoming a subscriber. Doing so will give you access to the work of over 1,700 journalists whose mission is to cover the world and make sure you have accurate and impartial information on the most important topics of the day. Ahead of Serena Williams’s taking the court — which she did with a bowed head and a serious expression — a video with greetings from the retired champion Billie Jean King and some rising stars on the tour, Coco Gauff, Leylah Fernandez and Bianca Andreescu, played for the crowd. “In the players’ lounge, you heard the chatter.

Williams's career is coming to an end before it would if she were a male player, simply because she must choose between tennis and having more children.

For the men in her line of work, parenthood is usually framed as an opportunity for some kind of spiritual change. Djokovic, 35, won five of his grand slam titles after his son was born in 2014, and three of them after his daughter in 2017. Williams, on the other hand, won the Australian Open in 2017 while she was two months pregnant, which, as she writes, seems “almost impossible”. The biggest impact having four children had on his body is that he needed surgery in 2016 because he twisted his knee while he was running a bath for them. But she can’t because she has to choose between having more children and having a playing career. She’s won more singles titles than any of them, more Olympic medals too, and did it all, as they used to say about Ginger Rogers, “backwards and in high heels”.

Twenty-four is the number of times the Australian tennis player Margaret Court won a Grand Slam singles title before retiring, in 1977. But any comparison falls ...

It looked squarely in the face at the deadening repetition inherent to training, the exhaustion in the travel, the physical loneliness of life on tour. She may not be able to dually serve the gods of tennis and motherhood, but generations of young athletes will continue to pick up racquets of their own because she inspired them to do so. He came back in 1995, retired for the second time in 1999, then came back again in 2001 before finally retiring for good in 2003. Next, an exquisite, bodysuited lunge in 2003, taken shortly after her historic “Serena Slam” (four Grand Slams in a row, but not within a calendar year). And finally there she is, resplendent in red in 2015, the year she won her 19th Grand Slam at the Australian Open, her 20th at the French Open, and her 21st at Wimbledon. Twenty-two came one year later, also at Wimbledon. And then there was the illustrious 23, at the 2017 Australian Open, when she was 35 years old and two months pregnant with her daughter, Olympia. Five years later, it is Olympia who matters most. The reality is that Williams wants another baby; her daughter wants a sibling. He was back in the pool by 2014, then retired “for real” in 2016 after Rio, and five more golds. But any comparison falls comically short: Court won the majority of her slams before the Open Era of tennis (in which pros and amateurs compete against one another) began, in 1968. The woman who has broken every barrier and defied the boundaries of the game has at last collided with the same fate of countless women before her: She simply can’t have it all. There she is with Venus Williams, her sister, in matching striped gowns on a sofa in 1998, one year before Serena won her first Grand Slam, at the U.S. Open, at 17 years old. It was, as The New York Times noted, “one of the most passionately anti-sports books ever written by a superstar athlete.” There were no platitudes on hard work or a champion’s mentality, no dithering over the necessary sacrifices or the payoffs to come. Unless Serena Williams pulls off the kind of feat typically reserved for Hollywood endings at this year’s U.S. Open, 23 is the number of Grand Slam singles titles with which she will retire. These beings, light-years of talent and discipline and stamina beyond us mortals who admire them, are, technically, leaving the day jobs that made them rich and famous.

Some of Serena Williams' biggest rivals today have literally seen her dominate the sport their whole lives. Read more here.

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The first stop on Serena Williams's farewell tour came to a quick end as she fell 6-2, 6-4 to Belinda Bencic in the second round of the Canadian Open.

I wish I could’ve played better but Belinda played so well today.” I’ll be coming back just as a visitor to the city but otherwise it’s been remarkable.” “It’s been a pretty interesting 24 hours ... I’m terrible at goodbyes.

For someone who doesn't pride herself on goodbyes, Serena Williams exceeded expectations on Wednesday in Toronto. The American tennis icon proved herself a ...

It could be a different story in Cincinnati or later this summer at the US Open, where she will likely play her final Grand Slam match with an adoring public ready to fill Arthur Ashe stadium with resounding echoes of her sonorous name. I never imagined to play Serena so many times and it’s always an honor to be on the court with her, and that’s why I think tonight is about her, especially here in Toronto.” She seemed to teeter on the precipice of an all-out cry, but didn’t allow herself the luxury of doing so.

No one knows exactly how many more matches Williams will play before walking away, and the 23-time Grand Slam champion exited the National Bank Open on ...

Delivered another later in that opening game, too, showing off the superb serve that helped her to so many victories. But because of a leg injury that sidelined her for the last half of 2021 and first half of 2022, she was playing for only the third time in the past 12 months, and it showed. "Belinda played so well today."

Serena Williams has lost her first match since telling the world she is ready to leave professional tennis.

Williams will exit the court one last time at the U.S. Open in New York next month. Williams held serve and seemed to have a jump in her set. Her longevity and ability to stay great throughout it all is unparalleled. "She's used tennis as a platform way beyond just the sport. Williams wiping away tears as she leaves the court. Throughout the evening the crowd tried to motivate Williams by yelling and clapping. Her last win in Canada came in 2013. A number of occasions the head umpire asked the fans to be quiet. Williams cried, wiping her face with a towel as she waved to the crowd. She made no mistake and ended it in short order. As Williams says goodbye to Canada.

What a scene here. She cruised to a first set victory, 6-2, in just 41 minutes.

Belinda Bencic advanced to the Round of 16 at the National Bank Open with a straight-set win over Serena Williams.

It's difficult to kind of put that aside and just like focus on the match. "It was a lot of emotions obviously," Williams told the crowd. Bencic on the win: "Of course it's super nice, but today it's a little bit more sad in a way. The Swiss won the toss, elected to receive, and proceeded to earn two break points in the opening game. The 25-year-old from Switzerland faced just one break point in the match, which she saved. Williams was bidding to win her first back-to-back singles matches since 2021 Roland Garros, having won her Toronto opener in straight sets over Nuria Parrizas Diaz.

One day after announcing her intentions to retire from tennis, Serena Williams was defeated by Belinda Bencic in the second round of the National Bank Open ...

Williams managed to hold serve on the next point, but Bencic did the same to take match point. Williams took the first point in the first set but quickly lost momentum as Bencic won the next three points. Maybe the best word to describe what I'm up to is evolution. But Bencic rattled off three straight points to take the advantage. "I have never liked the word retirement," Williams stated. Bencic won in straight sets 6-2, 6-4.