Serena Williams Evolves Beyond Her Life as the GOAT in Women’s Tennis
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In her own words, Serena Williams is “evolving” past professional tennis. She’s been playing tennis her entire life and won her first Grand Slam as a senior in high school at age seventeen. But now at forty years old, she is a mother to daughter Olympia and a wife to Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit. As told by Williams on the Duchess of Sussex’s podcast, Archetypes, she wants to expand her family and her investment company, Serena Ventures.
Founded in 2014, Serena Ventures is an investor in at least sixty companies, many of which have underrepresented founders or are located in Africa. Throughout her tennis career, Williams has been an advocate for investing in women and BIPOC, so, naturally, her investment company is an extension of that.
Those who have kept up with Williams over the years know that she is a fierce and passionate athlete, who plays by her own rules. She has never let social norms or the culture of tennis, predominantly a rich white man’s sport, limit her and that is what makes her so entertaining to watch. Her presence on the court is loud and exciting. She pumps her fists when she scores and has been known to slam her racquet on the ground when she misses, and the fans are there to see it all. She has never been one to conceal her emotions on the court for the sake of maintaining decorum and is quick to point out the double standard for “acceptable behavior” of male and female players. Men who display passionate reactions on the court are often praised as “ambitious” and “competitive,” while women who exhibit similar reactions are penalized, fined, or even disqualified.
Back in 2018 at the U.S. Open, Williams referred to the chair umpire as a “thief” after he called multiple balls “out” that were clearly “in.” In response, the umpire took away one of her games in addition to fining her $17,000. Many online, including famous tennis player Billie Jean King, were quick to recall Andre Agassi referring to an umpire as a “son of bitch” and then spitting on the umpire’s leg at the U.S. Open in 1990. Agassi was only fined $3,000 for his behavior.
Williams has also been outspoken about equal pay for male and female athletes. According to Yoonji Han from Insider, “she became the first female tennis player to be paid equally to her male counterpart, Roger Federer” after winning at Wimbledon in 2007. In 2016, Ben Rothberg from the New York Times reported that female tennis players earned just 80 cents for every dollar that men earned. About this, Williams commented,
“These sports have a lot of work to do. And I really hope that I can be helpful in that journey because I do believe that women deserve the same pay. We work just as hard as men do. I've been working, playing tennis, since I was three years old. And to be paid less just because of my sex—it doesn't seem fair. Will I have to explain to my daughter that her brother is gonna make more money doing the exact same job because he's a man?”
She has also pushed the envelope in regard to fashion for the sport and has a long history with Vogue, even choosing to announce her evolution away from tennis in an article she wrote for Vogue’s website. Some may recall Williams wearing a full-length bodysuit to the French Open in 2018 that served as compression to support her blood flow following a near-death experience with blood clots while recovering from giving birth. Because the bodysuit was an untraditional women’s tennis outfit, the French Tennis Federation issued a stricter dress code soon after she appeared in it on the court. In response, Williams played the next day in a Nike tutu.
Perhaps the most important part of her legacy thus far is inspiring other women and people of color. As Serena Williams’s tennis career comes to an end, Naomi Osaka’s career is just beginning. Born to a Japanese mother and Haitian father, Osaka has credited Williams for inspiring her, as a young woman of color, to start playing tennis. Williams has been an advocate and role model for Black women and will continue to be so as the Managing Partner of Serena Ventures—hiring an executive staff of predominantly women and nearly all of them women of color.
But when it comes to her own thoughts about her legacy, Williams is humble. She says in her Vogue article, “I don't particularly like to think about my legacy. I get asked about it a lot, and I never know exactly what to say. But I'd like to think that thanks to opportunities afforded to me, women athletes feel that they can be themselves on the court. They can play with aggression and pump their fists. They can be strong yet beautiful. They can wear what they want and say what they want and kick butt and be proud of it all.”
Over the years, Williams has been labeled as “aggressive,” “emotional,” and “attacking,” but after winning twenty-three Grand Slams over the course of her career, clearly, she did not let these words stop her nor define her. And that is why she is choosing for herself to rename her retirement an “evolution.” Simply put, she wants to control her own narrative about women in sports who are also mothers. “Retirement” carries the connotation that someone is quitting to enjoy a more relaxing lifestyle. But Williams is actually taking on more than ever as she plans to have more children and continue her philanthropy through her business.
"I'm here to tell you that I'm evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me," says Williams.
Her new career ventures almost feel like a love letter to all the fans who have invested and been inspired by her journey over the last two decades. And so, Serena’s story is not over, it is only just beginning.