A few days before Serena Williams won the 22nd of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles at Wimbledon in 2016, she was asked what she thought of people calling her one of the greatest athletes in history.
Her Answer: She prefers to be called “one of the greatest athletes of all time.”
That one brief response from Williams said quite a lot — about her unique talent with a racquet in hand, her status as an icon, her willingness to stand up for herself, why women’s sports shouldn’t be thought of differently than men’s sports .
It all came back to me on Tuesday, when Williams announced that she is preparing to leave her professional tennis career as the US Open begins on August 29 and her 41st birthday approaches next month.
Yes, with “Come on!” calls. On her journey, she has won the most major singles championships in tennis’s professional era, which began in 1968; more than 22 for Steffi Graf or Rafael Nadal, more than 21 for Novak Djokovic, more than 20 for Roger Federer, more than 18 for Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, more than anyone else. And yes, Williams won a total of 73 tour-level singles titles and spent weeks at No. 1 for more than six years. And she has teamed with her older sister Venus to capture 14 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles. And then there are the four Olympic gold medals. etc. etc.
Still, mere numbers cannot capture all that Williams has represented throughout a remarkable career that began as a teenager in the 1990s and is notable not only for accomplishments but for longevity, including a record 10 major championships after her 30th birthday .
“She has lasted longer than most, if not all, tennis pros. She transcended tennis to become a leader on many important cultural, social and gender issues. She has lived an extraordinary life,” Evert wrote in a text message to The Associated Press, “and will undoubtedly continue to bring down the glass ceiling in the future.”
In fact, what Williams has done without a racquet in hand is quite remarkable and stretches beyond the millions of endorsement deals; the flirtation with acting; an interest in fashion design and a penchant for taking the catwalk to the court with body suits and knee-high boots and whatever else she wanted to try; fame and place in pop culture; and most recently, working as a venture capitalist (“Seventy-eight percent of our portfolio are companies founded by women and people of color, because that’s who we are,” Williams said).
“It’s important to take a step back and reflect on what Serena has brought to our sport and what she has achieved both on and off the court,” said Steve Simon, head of the WTA Women’s Tennis Tour. “She is one of the greatest pioneers, an entrepreneur, a mother, an investor in women’s entrepreneurial ventures and an inspiration to women and girls around the world.”
Williams spoke about being black in her sport — she was the first to win a Grand Slam tournament since Althea Gibson in the 1950s — and in her country. She stayed away from a tournament in California for years after she and her father heard racist taunts there. She’s talked about being a woman in tennis, being a woman who’s struggled with childbirth complications, being a mother (her daughter Olympic will be 5 on September 1, and Williams wants to have another baby ).
She and Venus helped their sport reach a wider audience and helped bring a broader segment of society into their sport (Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old African American who finished second at the French Open in May, said on Tuesday she plays what she called “a predominantly white sport” because she “saw someone who looked like me dominating the game”).
“I don’t particularly like thinking about my legacy. I get asked about it a lot and never quite know what to say,” she wrote in an essay published by Vogue magazine. “But I would like to believe that thanks to the opportunities I am given, female athletes feel like they can be themselves on the pitch. They can play with aggression and pump their fists. You can be strong and yet beautiful. They can wear what they want and say what they want and be proud of everything.”
Certainly there were moments she might not have been that proud of, confrontations with match officials that led to her losing a point or a game at the US Open, losing to Naomi Osaka and Kim Clijsters — maybe the kind of episodes that came on which she referenced in her essay when she said, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career. Mistakes are learning experiences and I embrace those moments. I’m far from perfect, but I’ve also taken a lot of criticism and I’d like to remember that I’ve gone through some tough times as a professional tennis player so the next generation could have it easier.”
Her serve was a gift, as were the powerful groundstrokes that made her and Venus – her opponent in nine All-in-the-Family Grand Slam finals – a fixture of the game. So was the indomitable will and desire to always come out on top, whether the person on the web was Big Sis or someone else, whether they were trying to win a point during a game, or making a point in an interview.
“I want to be great. I want to be perfect,” Williams said. “I know there is no such thing as perfect, but whatever my perfect was, I never wanted to stop until I got it right.”
Of course in tennis and beyond.
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Write to him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/HowardFendrich