Serena Williams, iconic champion and crossover star, will soon retire from tennis

Serena Williams has long been one half of what might well be the most incredible story in sports history. To think: Not just one family member, but two sisters, made their way from Compton, Calif. to the top of the world. Their father Richard had the idea, but Serena and Venus put in the hard yards—and there came the ascent of two incredible champions certain to be enshrined in the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

The latest chapter in that story began today, with Serena announcing her forthcoming retirement. She will leave an incredible legacy, having won an Open Era-record 23 Grand Slam singles titles: seven at the Australian Open, three at Roland Garros, seven at Wimbledon, six at the US Open. Williams joins Chris Evert, Margaret Court and Helen Wills as the only woman to have won a major singles championship in her teens, 20s and 30s. Amazingly, ten of those triumphs came after she turned 30.

Williams also won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles with Venus, two mixed doubles majors alongside Max Mirnyi, and four Olympic gold medals: one in singles, and three in doubles (with Venus).

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Head way back to the early 1990s. Those were the years when Richard waxed most frequently about his older daughter, Venus, and how she was going to become the best player in the world. Occasionally, Richard noted that he had a younger daughter who was going to be even better. Amid his many other comments in those days, his thoughts on Serena seemed merely an aside.

Venus’ debut came in the fall of 1994 in Oakland, Calif. In addition to competing at a WTA tournament there that week, the 14-year-old Venus was front and center at a number of community spots, including a park and a school. Serena? She was strictly in the background, a shy 13-year-old watching her big sister command the stage. Who besides Richard had any idea how brilliantly she’d step out from those shadows?

Serena was one of those rare players you didn’t want to miss play a single point. To be sure, there were patchy portions. But then there were the repeated lightning bolts, be it a big serve, bold return or mid-rally blistering winner that could either go crosscourt or down the line. The serve was often terminal, exceptionally so on big points. In the history of tennis, Williams’ clutch serving ranks alongside such greats as Pete Sampras, John Newcombe and Pancho Gonzales.

Throughout her career, Serena continually showed an ability to fight exceptionally hard—most of the time in the process of winning. But even in defeat, she proved as difficult to close out as anyone tennis has ever seen.

The list of Williams’ major comebacks is epic. There were a couple of early efforts I sat courtside for that that deeply revealed her tenacity. Early in 1999, at the age of 17, Williams took on the great Stefanie Graf in the Indian Wells final. Down 4-2 in the third set, Williams rallied to win it, 7-5.

Later that summer, on the middle Saturday of the US Open, Williams took on another promising teen that would end up in the Hall of Fame, Kim Clijsters. My longstanding mentor, Tony Trabert, was broadcasting the match for CBS and waved me over to visit him in the booth. When Clijsters took a 5-3 lead in the third set, I reminded Tony of Williams’ comeback versus Graf. Said Tony, “I wouldn’t be surprised if she did it again.”

It did, Williams going on to beat Clijsters and four additional future Hall of Famers—Conchita Martinez, Monica Seles, Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis—to win her first Grand Slam singles title.

Williams’ exceptional aptitude for the comeback continued unabated in the 21st century. In the semifinals of the 2003 Australian Open, again versus Clijsters, she rallied from 5-1 down in the third, fought off two match points and ended up the victor. Two days later, she got past Venus in a tight three-setter to claim her fourth straight major—the first two of such achievements dubbed the “Serena Slam” (the other came in 2014-15).

Two years after that, in another Australian Open semi, Williams made a major statement. This time the opponent was Maria Sharaopova, who’d beaten her the last two times they’d played, both in high-stakes matches—the finals of Wimbledon and the WTA Championships. Sharapova handily took the first set, 6-2, and served for the match at 5-4. Williams broke back, and took the match into a third. Once again, Sharapova was in the lead, holding three match points at 5-4. But this time too, Williams recovered from the brink, going on to the victory, 2-6, 7-5, 8-6. Williams would go on to finish her career with a 20-2 record against Sharapova.

While the gritty counterattack showcased one dimension of Williams’ competitive will, there also came moments when she was focused from the minute she walked on to the court. One I recall vividly came in 2003, as I sat inside Centre Court for a Wimbledon semifinal between Williams and Justine Henin. A few weeks earlier, in the semis of Roland Garros, Henin had defeated Williams, 7-5 in the third, in a rather acrimonious match. Keen to avenge that loss, Williams never let up, obliterating Henin, 6-3, 6-2, in 70 minutes.

The Belgian won six of their 14 matches, including three straight in Grand Slam quarterfinals in 2007. But of all the opponents Williams played, she always considered Venus to be her toughest rival. The two played one another 31 times, Serena winning 19. Still, accomplished as each sister was, there was an awkward quality watching these two play one another, a magnified, brutal awareness of tennis’ zero-sum nature.

Through the late stages of her career, Williams often noted how opponents typically played the matches of their life against her. If not always true, it happened frequently, be it Roberta Vinci in the semis of the 2015 US Open, Garbine Muguruza in the 2016 Roland Garros final, Angelique Kerber in the 2018 Wimbledon final, or Simona Halep in the 2019 Wimbledon final. Those great wins were testimony to Williams’ excellence. But of course they were also frustrating, as Williams so hoped to earn more major singles titles and further burnish her legend.

And yet, the ability to hit a tennis ball well was only part of what made Serena Williams significant. She was as popular a crossover star as tennis has ever seen, adorning advertisements for the likes of Nike, Gatorade, Wheaties and Hewlett-Packard, as well as starring in an HBO reality show and featured on the cover of major magazine pieces for such publications as Vanity Fair, Essence, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Ebony, Vogue and the New York Times Magazine. The latter’s eloquent tribute to Williams, authored by prominent author Claudia Rankine, begin with these words that explained Williams’ significance:

There is no more exuberant winner than Serena Williams. She leaps into the air, she laughs, she grins, she pumps her fist, she points her index finger to the sky, signaling she’s No. 1. Her joy is palpable. It brings me to my feet, and I grin right back at her, as if I’ve won something, too. Perhaps I have.