Serena Williams ‘paved the way’ for mothers to keep playing tennis, says Martina Navratilova
Serena Williams ‘paved the way’ for mothers to keep playing tennis, says Martina Navratilova
Serena Williams, a six-time Grand Slam winner, is an icon in tennis and has been dubbed “The Queen of Clay.”
The 34-year-old American is the first American woman to back a women’s professional tennis circuit since Steffi Graf in 1976.
Now that she’s one of the world’s top-ranked tennis players, Serena has become a role model of a different sort: a mother who has helped other mothers keep practicing at tennis.
Serena, who turns 35 in January, recently wrote an open letter to her fellow moms in which she encouraged them to keep playing, saying she was “paving the way” for them to do the same.
That letter, which was published by The New York Times on Thursday, was written shortly before the U.S. Open tournament began. In it, Serena wrote about her experience as an athlete in high school, how she used tennis to help her get out of the house, her support of her mother who also played tennis as a child, and her plans for retirement.
“I think it can be a tremendous gift,” she wrote. “I didn’t want my story to be the story of the woman who never got married; I wanted my story to be the story of the woman who never got a boyfriend.”
For Serena, motherhood and tennis have grown increasingly intertwined, and the tennis icon feels it’s time for her to move on from the competitive tennis aspect herself.
“I’ve been fortunate that my tennis life, and my career, have been pretty normal,” Serena wrote. “But I have been a mother to three little girls. Every day, I wake up and I try to do the best I can for my family.
“Just like tennis is a part of my life, it is something I do every day,” she continued. “I try to give my kids opportunities — to learn to play tennis, to learn to be active, to have