Serena Williams ‘evolved away from tennis’ in 2022, and now she has detailed why it happened and what made her do it.
Williams refused to acknowledge her retirement as a proper retirement. She preferred to use the term ‘evolving’, which many assumed was just her dropping hints that a return to tennis could be possible.
She teased it a few times in the months after her retirement, but eventually, most of her fans realized that she was indeed done with the sport for good. She’s not using the word ‘evolve’ anymore, acknowledging that she’s truly retired from the sport, but in a recent interview with Bazaar, Williams opened up about why she stopped playing tennis.
Many assume it had to do with her more frequent injuries, but it wasn’t like that. She still felt that she could compete at a high level, but she valued other things more. She wanted to have a family, and it’s one of the main reasons why she stopped playing tennis.
“I love watching it. I love playing it. I love being a part of it. I’m still really good at it. [Laughs.] I always say the reason I stopped was not because of injury. It was because I wanted to have a family.”
She didn’t decide to step away from tennis on a whim. It was a really hard decision because she really believed that she could still compete at the highest level, even though her results might have painted a different picture.
“And that was a very hard decision to have to make when you know you can still play and perform at a very high level, and then have to say no [to that part of yourself], because you want to have a future and leave a mark.”
“I think if I didn’t have that, maybe I wouldn’t miss it as much, but because of the way I had to depart, maybe I do miss a little bit more than the average person.”
