Serena Williams, goodbye to the legend who changed the history of tennis forever

It had to be in the US Open, the tournament he most wanted to win. The tournament in which he first raised a “big” trophy, in 1999, when he was just 17 and when he was only professional for two seasons. In which he has always played at home and which he has won six times. The US Open was supposed to be the event where Serena Williams wrote the last chapter of an extraordinary career and said goodbye to a sport to which he dedicated his whole life. “The countdown has begun,” she warned a few weeks ago. And the countdown has reached zero Fridaywhen the American, now 605th in the standings, dropped to the Australian Ajla Tomljanovic and greeted Flushing Mewsfor a standing ovation, for the last time.

Less than a month after her 41st birthday, Williams retired and marked the end of an era in which she revolutionized women’s tennis with a game as powerful as some men, a physical power far superior to. that of his colleagues, an extreme competitive mentality and great ambition. That little girl who learned to hit the yellow ball on the modest public courts of Compton, California, ended up becoming a living legend of the sport.

It tells the story of the Williams family that after accidentally watching a women’s tennis final on television that left the winner a $ 40,000 prize, Richard dreamed in 1978 that his wife oracene and he would have two daughters, who would become two great tennis champions. And although she knew absolutely nothing about the sport and the girls weren’t in the couple’s plans, she decided to go to work to make that dream come true.

He read everything he found about tennis, watched every video he came across and even took lessons to understand it better. And he convinced his wife to expand the family. Thus, on June 17, 1980, he was born Venus. And on September 26, 1981, Serena.

When his daughters were 4 and 5, Richard put his plan into action and began training them with methods that included not only tennis lessons but also soccer and basketball exercises to improve their physique. From an early age he taught them to be competitive, to leave everything on the pitch to win, to fight and train hard to become the best. And through hard work, she made that prophetic dream come true. Venus became a great champion, but she was Serena who exceeded all expectations and became one of the most powerful, successful and influential athletes in the world.

Summarizing all his achievements in a few lines is not an easy task. For nearly two decades, he has exerted overwhelming dominance on the circuit WTA. He got tired of crushing rivals and breaking records. He has won 73 singles titles, 23 of them in the Grand Slams. She cried seven times champion Australian Open and many others in Wimbledonsix at the US Open and three at Roland Garros. She is the first winner in the Open era of the “big” ocean and American, in the latter together Chris Evert.

He amassed 319 weeks as number one. She first appeared at the top was on July 8, 2002 and she last held it the week of May 14, 2017. She is the third player who has spent the longest time in that position, behind Steffi Graff (377) and Martina Navratilova (332). Between 18 February 2013 and 11 September 2016 he spent 186 consecutive weeks at the top of the standings, an absolute record he shares with the Graf.

He was also a powerhouse in doubles, a discipline in which he led the rankings for eight weeks, between July and August 2010, and won 23 trophies and 14 majors, all alongside Venus. He hung four Olympic gold medals: the individual London 2012 and those of a couple, on that same date, Sidney 2000 Y Beijing 2008. And she was champion Billie Jean King Cup (formerly Fed Cup) with his country’s team in 1999.

On a sporting level, her only outstanding score was to equal the all-time record – in both women and men – of 24 coronations in the Grand Slam of Australia. Margherita Corte. Serena got her last “big” in Australia in 2017, when she was already two months pregnant with her daughter Olympia. After that celebration, she left the circuit and became a mother in September. Some time later, she said that after the Caesarean delivery she suffered a pulmonary embolism and internal bleeding that was life threatening. But she recovered and returned to play in March 2018.

After the break, it was never the same. Without the mobility of his prime, it was increasingly difficult for him to beat much younger rivals on the pitch and, moreover, he began to prioritize his family – he recently said he wanted to have another child – and to be more selective. when she puts her calendar together. The lack of regularity of him (he only managed to add one more title, in Auckland 2020) and some long periods without competitions, sometimes due to injury, others by personal decision, made him fall in the standings. In early June he appeared on the 1223rd step. Weeks later, he returned to play at Wimbledon, after a year of absences, and made up ground.

Still, he kept looking for that desired 24th great, but he could no longer feed his personal crop in the most important category of professional tennis. She has come close to it four times, reaching the Wimbledon and US Open finals in 2018 and 2019. But she is the German angelica kerberthe Japanese Noemi OsakaThe Romanian Simona Halep and the Canadian Bianca Andreescu They left her empty-handed.

“I would be lying if I said I don’t want that record. Obviously, I do. Maybe I thought about it too much and it didn’t help. The way I see things, I should have over 30 Grand Slams,” he reflected in the magazine interview. fashionin which he had felt that the end was near.

Eventually, he will be left with the desire to catch up with Court and add that badge to his long list of achievements. “Best Grand Slam Champion”. Perhaps it also hurts him for some time to have retired without equaling – and why not, breaking – that record, which has been the great motivation of the last years of his career. But that “void” in his resume can never overshadow his extraordinary career.

Williams will always be considered one of the best – if not the best – tennis players of all time. A voracious and ambitious competitor who has marked a before and after in the women’s circuit and has become one of the greatest athletes in history. A true legend.