Serena Williams: Thank You For The Music

The US Tennis Open which commences in Flushing Meadows, New York on Monday, will likely be the last time game watchers will see Legend Serena Williams on court in a grand slam tournament. That is the indication from what she said a few weeks ago.

I can practically see someone saying, “Serena, Music?” Indeed, it has been like music to the ears, watching Legend Serena Williams use her racket to entertain the world of tennis these last three decades. Yes, it’s thank you to Serena for her racket and tennis balls which have taken the game to the highest level and made many people happy all around the world.

Many people got to love and follow tennis because of what the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus, brought to the game. Several tennis fans who go to work will mostly hurry home to their TV if the sisters, and in many cases, Serena, were scheduled to play. She was and is still loved by many.

A friend of ours once publicly professed his love for Serena and her bulging muscles on social media (he knows himself and he is married) and we his friends threatened to direct his wife’s attention to the post. She affected so many people like that.

Her announcement of possible retirement from tennis was not unexpected, judging by obvious difficulty in achieving the heights she has been known for in recent times. Several losses to younger or lowly ranked opponents have shown that the Serena we know was likely to bow out soon when the ovation is still loud, even when she had failed to achieve the 24 grand slam times she has been aiming for. She has won 23 and was aiming to equal the 24 slam record of another female tennis legend, Margaret Court.

She cited family reasons for her decision to retire, and she has been known to have an intention to have another child, even though she is now 40 years old. On November 16, 2017, in what became tagged the ‘Wedding of the Year’, Serena got married to Alexis Kerry Ohanian, an American-Armenian internet entrepreneur and investor. He is best known as the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of the social media site Reddit, along with Steve Huffman and Aaron Swartz. She gave birth to her first child, Alexis Olympia, same year.

In her historic career, Serena Williams has earned about $100 million in prize money and much more in endorsements.

She became a professional tennis player at the age of 14 in 1995 and won her first grand slam singles title aged 17 at the 1999 US Open. She also partnered with her elder sister, Venus, to win 14 grand slam women’s doubles titles. She won four Olympic gold medals, three of them in doubles, and two mixed doubles grand slam titles.

Born September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan, Serena Jameka Williams has been ranked World Singles No. 1 for 319 weeks, including a joint-record 186 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 five times.

Along with her older sister Venus, Serena was earlier coached by her parents Oracene Price and Richard Williams.

Widely considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time – male or female – her dominance of the female game was so predictable at a time that no one seemed to reckon on the end of an era when she would decide to hang her racket.

Serena is credited with so many titles and awards, including:

1. Holding the most combined major titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles among active players, with 39: 23 in singles, 14 in women’s doubles, and two in mixed doubles.
2. She is joint-third on the all-time list and second in the Open Era for total major titles.
3. She is the most recent woman to simultaneously hold all four major singles titles in 2002 to 2003 and 2014 to 2015 in the Australian Open at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, French Open at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London and US Open at Flushing Meadows, in Queens, New York.
4. Most recent woman to win the Surface Slam (major titles on hard, on clay and grass courts in the same calendar year), doing so in 2015.
5. She is also, with Venus, the most recent player to have simultaneously held all four major women’s doubles titles (2009 – 10).
6. She has won the Laureus Sportswoman of the Year award four times (2003, 2010, 2016, 2018).
7. In December 2015 she was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated
8. In 2021, she was ranked 28^th on Forbes‘World’s Highest-Paid Athletes list.
9. She is the highest-earning woman athlete of all time.
10. In 2013, aged 32, she became the oldest woman in the Open Era to hold No. 1 ranking
11. Williams became the oldest US Open champion in the Open Era and pushed her career prize money past $50 million
12. In 2013, she became the oldest person to win the WTA Championships and 4th player to win it 4 times or more.
13. By winning the WTA championship in 2013, Williams became the first woman to win more than $10 million in a season and with her total of $12,385,572, only Rafael Nadal, in 2013, and Novak Djokovic, in 2011, 2012 and 2013, have earned more money in one season.
14. Williams finished 2013 end as No. 1 for the third time, becoming the oldest No. 1 player in WTA history.
15. She was also named the 2013 ITF World Champion, the fourth time that she has been given the World Champion’s crown.
16. Williams received two prizes at the 2013 ESPY Awards – Best Female Athlete and Best Female Tennis Player. Williams is just the fourth person to win Best Female Athlete on two occasions and she won Best Female Tennis player for a record sixth time

These are just some of the awards Serena won, as her contribution to tennis and sport continue to receive acclaim everywhere.

Everyone believes that if she does retire at the end of the 2022 US Open, and goes on to have another baby, you cannot put it past her to return – after all she did after Alexis Olympia’s birth!

However, the name Serena Williams will remain in the lights and be associated with the development of tennis and sport as a whole, because of the height she took the game.