Serena Williams is winding down her legendary tennis career and announced she will retire in the coming weeks — perhaps after the U.S. Open.
In an Instagram post previewing her appearance on the cover of the September issue of Vogue, the 40-year-old Williams wrote:
“There comes a time in life when we have to decide to move in a different direction. That time is always hard when you love something so much. My goodness do I enjoy tennis. But now, the countdown has begun. I have to focus on being a mom, my spiritual goals and finally discovering a different, but just exciting Serena. I’m gonna relish these next few weeks.”
Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles in her career, one shy of Margaret Court’s all-time mark of 24, yet she is widely considered the greatest female player of all time. Her last major came at the 2017 Australian Open where she beat her sister Venus while pregnant with her daughter Olympia.
Williams has a net worth of $260 million and has more than a dozen corporate partners. Her $94 million in career prize money is twice as much as any other female athlete has made.
Williams has investments in more than 60 startups through her firm Serena Ventures, which announced in March 2022 that it had raised an inaugural fund of $111 million.
She is making diversity a focus for her fund, and among her latest investments is Karat, which aims to help more Black software engineers get hired.
She sits on the board of SurveyMonkey’s parent, Momentive, and in January 2022, she joined NFT company Sorare as an advisor.
On Monday, Williams won her first singles match since Roland Garros in 2021, beating Nuria Parrizas 6-3, 6-4 to reach the second round in Toronto.