She is the greatest female tennis player of all time. She has two beautiful children, a net worth that outstrips her multimillionaire husband and a business portfolio that could give her bulging trophy cabinet a run for its money.
At the age of 44, the newly slimline Serena Williams (thanks to weight-loss jabs) could be sipping champagne next to the pool while her daughters play, continuing her philanthropic pursuits and enjoying the fruits of her labours.
But that wouldn’t really be Serena Williams.
Instead, with a glorious swish of what is currently a blonde ponytail and a mighty crack of a forehand, the sportswoman will today stride back onto the hallowed centre court at Wimbledon to compete in the singles competition for the first time in four years.
It was back in 2022, remember, that Serena used a self-penned essay for Vogue magazine to announce she was stepping away from professional tennis. So, why after all this time, and with a net worth estimated at around £300million, has she decided to come back – taking on an opponent, Australia’s Maya Joint, who at 20 is nearly 25 years her junior?
Ask Serena, as many have when news broke she’d be the most exciting Wimbledon wildcard in recent memory, and she quips: ‘I had nothing better to do.’
But, in truth, it’s much more complex than that.
The clues were there in that 2022 essay when the ever-charismatic star didn’t use the word retire.
Serena Williams, pictured practising at Wimbledon earlier this week, will today stride back onto the hallowed centre court at the All England Club to compete in the singles competition for the first time in four years
The Duchess of Sussex may appear in the stands at Wimbledon to watch her old friend Serena if she accompanies Prince Harry on his visit to the UK, writes Beth Hale
‘I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me,’ she wrote. ‘A few years ago I quietly started Serena Ventures, a venture capital firm. Soon after that, I started a family. I want to grow that family.’
And yet, while she put her tennis career on hold, she didn’t evolve away from the limelight. Serena is now a fashion red carpet regular, attending her tenth Met Gala in May wearing a Marc Jacobs minidress with gladiator heels, to support her sister Venus – co-chairman of the event – alongside Beyonce, Nicole Kidman and Vogue supremo Anna Wintour, who is a good friend.
She’s also written a children’s book, something she has in common with the Duchess of Sussex, to whom she was at one point very close indeed. Meghan, I am told, may or may not appear in the stands at Wimbledon to watch her old friend if she accompanies husband Prince Harry on his imminent visit to the UK.
The friendship dates back years, and despite rumours of a froideur, an All England Club source confirmed that Serena’s people had been in touch with them to discuss a possible Meghan visit, but no definite plans had been made because they hadn’t been given a specific date.
‘I guess it all depends on how Serena gets on, and whether her matches allow Meghan to come. We know she’s planning to, if her diary allows,’ says a tennis source.
Serena’s high profile off the court persisted in other ways, not least in her public openness about using the skinny jab Zepbound, which is similar to Mounjaro. Quickly she became one of the most famous celebrities to endorse the controversial jab.
On Oprah Winfrey’s podcast last August, Serena said she had not wanted to take ‘the shortcut’, but she was not losing weight after her two pregnancies through training alone.
‘I couldn’t beat the weight. It was the one opponent I couldn’t beat,’ she said. She is now reckoned to have lost two and half stone on Zepbound, though it’s not known if she is still on the drug.
The tennis star walks through Wimbledon with her husband Alexis Ohanian and her eight-year-old daughter Olympia
Her decision paid off in more than one way: she now serves as a spokesman and celebrity ambassador for Ro, the telehealth company, through which her weight-loss journey was managed. Husband Alexis was an early investor in Ro.
When a svelte Serena appeared – administering a jab, in an advert for the company – on giant screens at the Super Bowl earlier this year it provoked something of a storm.
‘Serena Williams can be doing so much to champion women’s sports or the importance of body positivity, but instead is pushing a weight loss drug in her retirement,’ one fan wrote on X.
Serena, however, hit back at her critics.
‘A misconception is that it’s a shortcut,’ said the star last year. ‘As an athlete and as someone that has done everything, I just couldn’t get my weight to where I needed to be at a healthy place – and believe me, I don’t take shortcuts.
‘This all started after I had my (first) kid. As a woman, you go through different cycles in your life… No matter what I did – running, walking, I would walk for hours because they say that’s good, I literally was playing a professional sport – and I could never go back to where I needed to be for my health.
‘Then, after my second kid, it just even got harder. So then I was like, OK, I have to try something different.
‘That’s kind of what led to this whole journey… Do I want to choose health? What do I want to do?’
Glitz and glamour go together with power and talent when it comes to Serena Williams. But one thing is certain: she has nothing left to prove as a tennis player. With 23 major women’s singles titles (an Open era record), she has won every Grand Slam title at least three times. Then there is all the associated business success: through her venture capital firm, she has invested in more than 80 companies. She has her own production company and her own cosmetics brand, for example.
Serena now serves as a spokesman and celebrity ambassador for Ro, the telehealth company, through which her weight-loss journey was managed
Which makes it all the more delightful that she’s been drawn back to the grass of SW19 this year.
One reason is certainly her deep-seated love of the sport. But there is another motivating factor too: motherhood.
Serena has two daughters Olympia, eight, and Adira, two, with her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and she has made no secret of the fact she wants them to see her being Serena Williams the Tennis Star, as well as Serena The Mum.
The sportswoman was famously eight weeks pregnant with Olympia when she won her seventh Australian Open title in 2017 – an achievement she has already shared with her daughter.
But that’s not quite the same as watching her in action.
‘It’s really about my kids getting to see me play,’ she said when her comeback (she played doubles at Queen’s) was announced earlier this month.
That ethos was in action yesterday when Olympia, dressed in all-white tennis skirt and t-shirt, joined her mum on court for a practice session.
As a source close to Serena tells the Daily Mail: ‘I’ve talked to Serena about this, and it’s mainly about the girls. She had children and stepped back from playing to look after them and work on other projects, but she never retired and I think as the girls have got older, she’s thought a lot about how good it would be for them to watch her.
The tennis star became one of the most famous celebrities to endorse the controversial jab Zepbound, which is similar to Mounjaro
‘She wants them to see her as a strong, successful woman – not just mom. She wants them to see it and understand what they’re watching. Adira came along after Serena had basically stopped, so she’s never once seen her mum walk onto a court.
‘There are other reasons as well, though. People assume she walked away and never looked back, but that didn’t happen.
‘There aren’t a lot of sports people who leave and just get on with their new lives. I reckon 90 per cent of those I know end up regretting it and thinking about coming back. Kim Clijsters came back as a mum and won the US Open, which is the one I keep reminding Serena about.
‘But then you’ve got the warnings too, [Bjorn] Borg turning up with his old wooden racket to face a new breed and getting found out. She’s well aware it can go either way.
‘That’s half the thrill of it for her, I think. She’d rather find out than spend the rest of her life wondering which one she’d have been. It’s not about taking on the world, you know. It’s about her taking on herself and seeing whether she can do it again… one last time.’
Certainly, Serena – always one of the more glamorous figures on the tennis scene (she wore an Alexander McQueen gown on her wedding day) – is in the physical shape of a champion. Her newly slender frame will not affect her competitiveness, says performance coach Dalton Wong, who has worked with athletes using weight-loss jabs and has nothing but admiration for her.
‘People who criticized her before for being muscly and too aggressive are criticising her now for being smaller. She can’t win. My view is she is not taking the drug to make her a better player, she’s still doing the training.’
He says Serena will have been carefully guided through her weight loss to ensure she preserves muscle mass and bone density, vital for her physical fitness.
As a woman ages, muscle mass is lost in any case, but the sportswoman’s athletic prowess will compensate for that, he says.
‘She may lose a bit of power, but she’ll increase in terms of speed, because she’s a bit lighter.
‘Her eye in the game and her ability to see things hasn’t gone. The way she plays the game is still there. And that’s [the result of] years and years of honing her skill.
‘She’s still so good, she could probably go in and make it to the quarter finals. She’s like a unicorn of tennis. Because she’s a bit older, she’ll be smarter with her training, she’s wiser.’
And more than that, Wong puts huge emphasis on something ‘no training can provide’.
‘She’s doing this, I would say, for the love of competition, for her family, because she wants to, not because she has to,’ he says. ‘And those are really big factors.
‘No-one would ask a guy “why are you coming back?” Her mental capacity hasn’t changed, her aggressiveness, her eye on the ball, all that stuff is still the same. That doesn’t change because you have a family or you get a bit older.
‘I think she can do whatever she likes because she’s such an amazing champion.’
Those close to Serena would concur.
Our source, who has known Serena for years, says: ‘Most people get a clear signal that they’re finished, the body gives out, the money’s in the bank, whatever it is. Champions like her never get that.
‘There’s always a little voice asking, can I still do this? It’s got nothing to do with applause or another trophy, it’s deep inside them, and it just nags away until they answer it.’
Could Wimbledon witness a Hollywood-style return to the final – and even the title itself – for Serena?
‘I have been close to a lot of athletes who have retired and come back,’ says the insider. ‘I talked to George Foreman when he came back. He spent ten years flogging his grills, then came back to become the oldest heavyweight champ there’s ever been. What was he? Almost 50? [he was 45]. Michael Jordan faxed everyone two words – “I’m back” – and won another three titles. And what about Martina Navratilova? She was still winning Slams in her late forties.’
Serena still gets nervous before every match, but without the burden of chasing the next Grand Slam, the next trophy, she is ‘for the first time in her whole life playing because she wants to, not because she has to’.
‘It’s almost like watching the kid who just loved hitting a ball about.
‘She’s not kidding herself she’s 25 again. She’s the first to tell you she’s a different person now, she’s a mum, she’s older, her whole life has changed. But she still wanted to know what this version of her could do.
‘There’s a bigger point buried in all this. We’re forever told our best years are behind us once we hit our forties. When Serena walks out on Centre Court at 44, she’s quietly tearing that idea up.
‘Excellence doesn’t come with an expiry date stamped on it, and I think that’s exactly why people who’ve never watched a tennis match in their lives are gripped by this.’
Gripped is precisely the word. As Serena strolls back onto the Grand Slam stage tomorrow afternoon, expect a standing ovation worthy of the champion she is.
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