Serena Williams has announced her upcoming retirement from tennis.
Gatekeepers News reports that the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, while announcing this on Tuesday, said she is “evolving away” from the sport.
Williams made just her second appearance of the year this week as she defeated Nuria Parrizas at the National Bank Open in Toronto.
The mother of one admitted afterwards she was “getting close to the light at the end of the tunnel” with regards to her remarkable career, before furthering that statement with a Vogue article in which she alluded towards walking away.
“I have never liked the word retirement,” Williams wrote in Vogue. “It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. I’ve been thinking of this as a transition but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people.
“Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.
“I’ve been reluctant to admit that I have to move on from playing tennis. It’s like a taboo topic. It comes up, and I start to cry. I think the only person I’ve really gone there with is my therapist.”
