'I'm ready to be a mom' - Serena Williams dampens talk of retirement rethink
Serena Williams has dampened any talk of reversing her decision to retire, saying it is time to 'explore a different version' of herself away from tennis.
Williams lost to Ajla Tomljanović in the US Open third round on Friday to bring the curtain down on her astonishing career.
On court she suggested she may be willing to rethink that decision, but it appears that was just a tease.
Asked if she can see herself deciding to carry on, Serena Williams said: "I don't know. I'm not thinking about that. I always did love Australia, though.
"But yeah, you know what, I've come a long way since last year at Wimbledon. Just not sure if that was my last moment or not. Making it a different moment I think is much better."
Despite that initial teaser, Serena Williams went on to explain that there really is very little chance of her prolonging her career.
The main motivator for walking away from tennis is, understandably, her daughter and wanting to devote more of herself to family life.
"It takes a lot of work to get here. Clearly I'm still capable. It takes a lot more than that. I'm ready to, like, be a mom, explore a different version of Serena.
"Technically in the world I'm still super young, so I want to have a little bit of a life while I'm still walking.
"I'm definitely resting tomorrow, and then probably spending some time with my daughter. I'm a super hands-on mom. I've been with her almost every single day of her life, minus two days or three days.
"It's been really hard on her, my career. So it will be, you know, nice just to do that and spend some time with her, do things that I never really have done or had an opportunity to do.
"I have such a bright future ahead of me. I don't know. Also I'm kind of at an advantage because COVID happened. I think everyone shut down for a year. We kind of got to see what our lives would be like if we weren't playing tennis.
"Then I got injured last year, so I took off literally a year. So I got to see, again, like, what every day would be like to wake up and not have to go to the gym.
"So I don't know. I think I'm definitely probably going to be karaoke-ing tomorrow."
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