Seven years ago, as Serena Williams continued to consolidate her career records and claim to be the greatest of all time, a reporter asked her to identify the all-time record in her sights. Williams then had 19 Grand Slam titles, just shy of the mark of 18 set by Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. She sighed deeply but was smiling, “Stephanie Graff has it, she has it [22]she said without hesitation. “It’s there, I can see it, just because you can see it doesn’t mean you can reach it.”
Williams will play the final tournaments of her career in the coming weeks after announcing her impending retirement at the age of 40 in Vogue on Tuesday and, for the record, she has indeed achieved the ultimate goal she set herself at the time. At the 2017 Australian Open, while pregnant with her daughter Alexis Olympia, Williams surpassed Graf to secure an Open-era record 23rd Grand Slam title.
But then the narrative changed. Although the Open Era of professional tennis has long been an important marker for the sport’s records, the 24 Grand Slam titles won by Margaret Court have come into view. It was circulated by pundits and fans, and Williams eventually accepted it, legitimizing it. In her Vogue essay on Tuesday, she was honest about her attempts to match Court’s grand slam tally.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want this record,” Williams wrote. “Obviously I do. But day to day I don’t really think about her. If I’m in a Grand Slam final, then yes, I think about that record. Maybe I was thinking about it too much and it didn’t help. The way I see it, I should have had more than 30 Grand Slams.
What matters is that in her 27-year career, Williams set the marker that matters to all who follow her, no asterisks needed. She reached a level of tennis never before seen in the women’s game and leaves behind a remarkable career.
Serena Williams, 17, after defeating Martina Hingis in the US Open final in 1999. Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images
It started with the teenager’s runaway success as a US Open champion aged 17 in 1999, then the two-and-a-half years it took her to win a second. She put together one of the greatest years in history, pushing the sport to a level never seen between 2002 and 2003 alongside her sister Venus. She won four consecutive Grand Slam titles, the Serena Slam, defeating Venus in each final. Her doubles partnership with her sister – they compiled an incredible 14-0 record in Grand Slam finals despite rarely playing – continued to flourish.
Considering the number of setbacks Williams has had to deal with due to injuries, depression and life-threatening illness, it’s hard to believe her longevity. She arrived at the 2007 Australian Open ranked No. 81 as pundits warned she was wasting her talent; she ended it by defeating Maria Sharapova in the final. Four years later, she recovered from her first bout of pulmonary embolism and returned to enjoy the best days of her career, winning 10 more Grand Slam titles after 30.
Even the most recent years of her career, those defined by her failure to match Court’s number of Grand Slam titles, still add to her legacy. After giving birth at age 36, she bounced back and eventually compiled a streak of four Grand Slam finals in six events in her late 30s.
Earlier in her career, Williams’ outside interests were often used as a point of criticism in comparison to the devotion of her rivals. She has now outlived most of her contemporaries by decades. Martina Hingis first retired in 2002, Justine Henin first appeared in 2007. Williams caught fire so early in her career, but her passion, love and healthy outlook for the sport only grew.
Venus and Serena didn’t just dominate the sport, they changed it. Their combination of strength, athleticism, serve, speed and ability to use it on the court has shaken the women’s game to its foundations, forcing every competitor to go to the gym.
Less recognized are Serena Williams’ other defining qualities; her intelligence, her sense of the court, her ability to solve problems under stifling pressure and find a solution on the court. Today, there are players who can knock the ball down as hard as she did, others who have built themselves as supreme athletes, and some who are extremely smart on the court. No one else can do it all.
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Although Williams hasn’t played much in recent years, reminders of her legacy are constant. They are present with every open-position backhand winner crushed from far behind the baseline by the many dynamic, talented players competing today, but also in more significant ways.
On Monday afternoon at the National Bank Open, Williams took the court. From the crowd, Naomi Osaka posted a video on social media as she watched, a Serena fan to the very end. Williams’ success spawned a new generation of tennis players who were vocal and clear about her influence as they established themselves at the top of the sport. They will continue it.
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