How Motherhood Changed Serena Williams, and She Quit the Sport to Devote all the Time to Her Daughter
Serena Williams is one of the most successful and highest-paid athletes in the history of tennis. She wasn’t only the number 1 ranked singles player for 319 weeks but also won the Grand Slam 23 times, which is more than anyone else. At the age of 40, Williams finished her outstanding 27-year-long career. We found out why Serena decided to quit tennis, and what plans she has for her future.
While tennis fans with sinking hearts watched Serena play, her life outside the sport was in full swing. She got married and had a child. And she was still a tennis player! Let’s find out more about the personal life of the tennis star.
The love story of Serena Williams and businessman, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, started when they met in Rome in 2015. They stopped at the same hotel and ran into each other by the pool. A relationship started after this. 1 year later, Alexis proposed to Serena in the same hotel. He told about his feelings, “I felt like a door had been opened to a person who made me want to be my best self... I find myself just wanting to be better by simply being around her because of the standard she holds.”
And Serena found out she was pregnant, 1 week before winning the Australian Open. The pregnancy was unexpected and unplanned. The news shocked Williams so much that she took 6 tests to know for sure, “It just doesn’t seem real. I don’t know why. Am I having a baby? I don’t know what to do with a baby... I’ve done absolutely nothing for the baby room.”
Serena was really about having a child. People thought Williams would finish her career, but she was going to return after labor, “This is just a new part of my life. My baby’s going to be in the stands and hopefully cheering for me.” During pregnancy, Serena proved that the sport was still in her life. She trained regularly and published videos from the court.
In September 2017, the couple had a daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. The pregnancy was simple, but the labor led to a series of complications. Serena had several surgeries and needed a lot of time to recover. Olympia was totally safe. When she was just a few weeks old, her proud parents made her an Instagram account. And after their daughter was born, Serena and Alexis finally had a wedding.
Despite having a baby and getting married, Serena was training hard to become the leader of tennis again. But there were challenges on her path: when she returned from maternity leave, she was fined, and her rating dropped from № 1 in the world to № 453. She needed a lot of time to prove her dominance. And preparing for tournaments was difficult not only physically, but also mentally because Serena couldn’t see her daughter. Only the support of her close people helped her manage.
Because she needed to leave Olympia, Serena felt like a bad mother, “I work a lot, I train, and I’m trying to be the best athlete I can be. However, that means, although I have been with her every day of her life, I’m not around as much as I would like to be.” Her sports career didn’t let her be around her child at very important moments of her life. Serena said that she cried when she missed her daughters’ first steps because of a competition.
Motherhood turned out to be hard for Serena: she said she was sad and had mental breakdowns. It kept getting harder and harder to find a balance between sports, herself, and her child, “I never understood women before, when they put themselves in second or third place. And it’s so easy to do.” She had to stop breastfeeding because she wanted to play tennis and win.
Even though tennis was always Serena’s biggest passion, after she had a daughter, her opinion started to change. On Olympia’s second birthday, she wrote, “The last 2 years have been my greatest accomplishment.”
And this change of priorities influence Serena’s decision to quit the sport: she’d never want to choose between 2 important parts of her life — sport and family. But it was really hard to play tennis because her daughter didn’t understand when her mom was always away. After leaving, Serena is planning to develop herself as a mom and her investment company, Serena Ventures. Serena doesn’t like the word “retirement”, she prefers to describe this new life stage as evolution.
Today, she is happy to be around Olympia. Serena says that her daughter often dreams of being an older sister. Maybe, they will have another child, “When I look at Olympia, I’m really not performing at my peak, by not trying harder to give her that sibling”.
“I’m going to miss that version of me, that girl who played tennis”, — Serena said. And she’s 100% sure about her choice, “The fact is that nothing is a sacrifice for me when it comes to Olympia. It all just makes sense.”
What do you think is more important: career or family?