Serena Williams has transcended women’s tennis as the greatest female player EVER

The extraordinary story of her family was celebrated with an Oscar–winning movie last year, and when it came to retirement Serena Williams leant heavily on the language of Hollywood.

‘I’m evolving away from tennis,’ she told Vogue, making reference to the near certainty of the forthcoming US Open being her farewell.

We can take it that we will not see the greatest female player of all again after Flushing Meadows, not on a court at least, and quite possibly neither her 42 year-old sister Venus.

Middle age is the opponent who always wins in the end, and it was looking that way at Wimbledon when she lost in the first round to unheralded Harmony Tan.

Bereft of prior matches, it was a somewhat shambolic encounter but gripping throughout. The latter is a fair summation of the Williams career, if not the former.

She will end one short of Margaret Court’s 24 Grand Slam singles titles. Yet, whether the record books show it or not, Serena was the superior player, with all her wins having come amid the greater challenges of the post-1968 Open era.

Serena Williams transcended women’s tennis as the greatest female player of all time

The 23-time Grand Slam winner fell just short of Margaret Court’s record of 24, but she will still go down as the superior player

While deliberately couching her departure in some mystery it has been obvious for some while that her time was up.

‘These days, if I have to choose between building my tennis resume and building my family, I choose the latter,’ she said, indicating where her priorities have lain.

It took her a while to discover the reality, but it is near impossible to win the Majors if you are playing the circuit part-time, which has long been the case with her.

She has been pulled in other directions not just by the demands of family, but of the burgeoning business and promotional interests on which she can now concentrate her entrepreneurial energies.

Williams won her first match in 430 days this week and will now end her career at the US Open

Williams won her first match for 430 days this week and it has seemed inevitable her glittering career was reaching its end 

This week in Canada is only the 29th WTA tournament she has played since winning the Australian Open more than five and a half years ago. She has played only eleven since the onset of the Covid pandemic.

For that reason her departure will be less of a blow to the women’s game than might be imagined, although there is no doubt it is losing its biggest star.

Any time that someone becomes instantly recognisable by their first name – Serena – you know that they have transcended their chosen profession.

The main tool of her trade was her serve, arguably the single most effective shot there has ever been in the history of the men’s or women’s game.

While at her best on faster surfaces she still managed three French Open titles, the first of them kicking off the finest run of her career. The ‘Serena Slam’ was patented in 2002-3 when she won four Majors consecutively, before quickly adding the second of her seven Wimbledon trophies.

It says something about her longevity – probably contributed to by her long breaks – that this high watermark of her career was nearly twenty years ago.

Her technical gifts were added to by an ability to reach deep into herself to stoke the competitive fires when they were most needed. Opponents would look down the court at this roaring indignation and know a storm was coming.

Her serve struck fear into her rivals – the single most effective shot there has ever been in the history of the men’s or women’s game 

She could be seen as a diva with a fiery nature – but most figures within the sport would admit she was also warm, humane and witty

This could boil over on occasions in unseemly ways, although the target was usually officialdom and not those she was playing against.

The US Open, with the pressure greatest amid its sometimes feverish atmosphere, was where things tended to reach boiling point.

In 2009 she threatened to kill a line judge by stuffing a ball down her throat; there was a vicious verbal assault on umpire Eva Asderaki-Moore in the 2011 final; in the 2018 edition she also lost it with the chair, after umpire Carlos Ramos legitimately gave her a game penalty.

On each occasion the match was going against her, and in the aftermath of each the game’s authorities were relatively soft with her. This has been one of the less stated aspects of the Williams career: her ability to inspire fear in others.

Some within the sport have tired of her Diva-like tendencies, but they would also acknowledge that she can be warm, humane and witty.

Middle age is the opponent who always wins in the end, and it was looking that way at Wimbledon when she lost in the first round to unheralded Harmony Tan 

She has played on after giving birth, through breastfeeding and postpartum depression. After rising from her humble origins, she always fought for everything she had on the court 

Rising from humble origins she and Venus, initially driven on by their father, have had to fight for all they have got. This sometimes came in the face of prejudice, not to mention injuries and illness.

While it will always be a disappointment to her that she could not win a singles Major as a mother, she only fell marginally short.

As she summarised in hinting at her now expected valedictory appearance in New York: ‘I had my chances after coming back from giving birth. I went from a C-section to a second pulmonary embolism to a grand slam final.

‘I played while breastfeeding. I played through postpartum depression. But I didn’t get there. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn’t show up the way I should have. But I showed up 23 times, and that’s fine.’