Motivations for the Comeback

Sky News, The full story first When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant You keep production lines moving and quality on track because there's no room for slowdowns. With Granger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call one eight hundred Ganger, click ranger dot com or just stop by Ranger for the ones who get it done She's arguably the greatest woman to ever play the game. Now Serena Williams is returning to tennis after years away. This is why Summer has arrived for most of the UK anyway, and if you're anything like me, this is the time of year that your mind turns to tennis grass courts are wimbled in the strawberries, the champagne. until a few years ago, Seinna Williams. never like love anything as much as tennis because it's like you're in the front of the world and you don't even realize it because there's so much pressure and so much stress. But you're walking out on center court every day and they're there to see you again. And there's no like adrenaline like that. Her love for the game was matched only by her success and yet almost four years ago hung up a racket. all over this time. Serena's last dance He's at an end So what was her retirement evidence final as it first appeared? Is there any chance you'll reconsider? I don't think so, but you never know She's back. She competed at the Queens Tournament last week and is a wild card with Sister Venus in the Wimbledon Women's doubles later this month. So what inspired her to return to the game because she clearly doesn't need the money Do she still have what it takes to compete as fiercely as she once did? Charlie Echoshire is senior tennis writer for the Athletics Jic, look, there is an awful lot of excitement about not just the return of Serena, but Serena and Venus to Wimbledon Just try and put it into some context for those who are not tennis heads in the way that you are. Why is this such a big deal? Serena and Venus Williams are two I want to say stars of the sport, but they transcend tennis really. They transcend sport. They are such icons, they're such role models. And just to put it in some context time wise, Venus first played Wimbledon in ninety seven. So we're talking very nearly thirty years ago. She won her first title in two thousand So these two have been important figures at Wimbledon for so long. They've won I think six doubles titles at Wimbledon together And five singles for Venus, seven for Serena. like they've dominated this tournament and they're such huge stars. and so that Iou, I think, just with the curiosity of seeing how Even these great legends, how can you still play professional tennis when you're forty four in Serena's case and Venus has just turned forty six. I think there's fascination for a number of reasons. We are though going to be focusing predominantly on Serena today. She followed in Venus's footsteps, but came to outranker, I would imagine, in terms of the success that she had. Just run us through the long, long list of the things that Serena's actually won in her time. Well twenty three singles, Grand Slams, that's the headline figure, many of them On top of a number in doubles as well. There are Olympic golds in there as well, which anyone else would be kind of career defining for Serena It's sort of an addendum. She doesn't outright hold the record for Grand Slams on the women's side. That's Margaret Court, but those are one in a very different era. in the open era in Tennis's kind of modern professional era, which starts in the late sixties, she does stand alone. and I think is generally regarded the greatest player of all time. You know, I think you'd struggle to find people who would argue that How did she become so dominant in the women's game? What was it about the way that she played that brought her such success Well, I think when she first arrived, she did possess a level of power that hadn't really been seen on the women's side. You know she was overwhelming players. She also had and still has probablyrobably the best serve in the history of the sport on the women's side and that is a huge, huge weapon, especially on grass where the surf tends to be at its most important because it's the quickest of the surfaces She also has a phenomenal will to win and you know, fighting spirit and aura. And that became sort of self fulfilling because the more she won The more confidence she got, the more her opponents feared her. I mean, she just absolutely backed herself. I was reading an interview with her when she was fifteen years old Wimbledward in ninety seven She is in absolutely no doubt that she's going to win this tournament and that she's going to win Grand Slams. From an even younger age, you know she absolutely believed that was her destiny had this unwavering self belief and had the technique to go with it as well. She was blessed with that serve. withith that power, but technically as well, so secuure, didn't really have a weakness. and all of that came together Taka are pretty much the undisputed greatest of all time You read an interview with her when she was fifteen and clearly already, she assumed that she was off to greater things and so it proved. But I suppose the Serena Williams tennis story starts rather earlier than that and it heavily involves her father Yeah, so Richard Williams was this rather eccentric tennis parent who everything he prophesies did come to pass. I mean, he said that these two were going to be Grandsam champions from a very young age and you know, they're growing up in Compton,ou central L.A, where there was a lot of gang violence, gunshots where they were playing tennis on the public courts in Compton. I mean, it really is an unbelievable story and it's been told so much that maybe We kind of lose sight of just how remarkable it is And then he moved them moved the family to Florida to play an academy that was ninety one. So you know, Serena at this point is barely ten years old And there, they got additional coaching from very well respected American coaches. But it was all Richard's vision and he watched videos about how to coach and how to make tennis champions. He did everything that he pledged to do and that he set out to do Yeah, he's a hugely important figure in her story. Along with the undoubted technique the technical ability that she had with a racket in hand M, how fair is it to say that Serena Williams and and off herself changed the women's game of tennis forever Oh, one hundred percent But Bear in mind, the player that she supplanted pretty much as you know the world number one and the player who was winning the most Grand Slams was Martina Henis Who? was a very technically gifted player, very smart player. But she was in a different weight category. She just couldn't live with Serena and Venus. And I was talking to another player from around that era who retired not long after Serenaa Revealist emerged and she said that was partly down to the fact that she was just like, well These guys are too good for me. You know, look at the players who've emerged since there's always going to be a degree of diversity. but people like Maria Sharipova came along huge hitter, but Serena absolutely dominated her. Irna Sabelenka is the world number one, huge hitter as well. So It did change the game. I mean, there were big hters before as well. You know, Monica Sellz when she emerged in the late eighties, early nineties, she was A game changer too. But no question, Sereina took it to another level. And raise the bar and made it so you can still win Grand Slams playing in a slightly different way. Look at someone like Ashley Barty But you have to be so, so good to be able to do that because there's a kind of base level of power that if you don't have it, you are gonna to really struggle un this utterly exceptional. Granger knows, when you're a procurement manager for an office park You're not managing one building. you're managing all of them And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners Light's about to fail, filters ready to clog, HVac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind Count on Granger for quality products, easy reordering and twenty four seven support Call one eight hundred Granger, click Granger. com or just stop by Granger. For the ones who get it done. What is another side though, to the undoubted strength and physicality that Serena Williams brought to the game And that was the scrutiny that she received, at least in the earlier stages of her career about her physicality, her physique itself, and she'd received an awful lot of criticism and others you would call it unwanted attention just because of the way that she looked. You had to deal with so much prejudice and dignity with which she did deal with that was quite amazing because bear in mind that when Venus won Dumbleden in two thousand That was the first time that a black woman had won Wimbledon since Alth Theo Gibson. That was in nineteen fifty eight, and tennis was a sport where An Arthur Ash had been such a trailblazer as well, but there wass a huge amount of racism and prejudice against black women and men trying and play tennis. I dare say there still is. I'm sure they would say that. And many of the players that have followed in their footsteps that they've inspired. I mean, they absolutely changed the game in that respect too. But there was so much suspicion around Serena and so much questioning of her approach to the game and you know, she had these outside interests that were talked about and as if that was some sort of negative thing. And you know, the irony being there that peopleeople questioned her commitment to tennis. and here we are nearly thirty years after she made her debut and she's still playing. she's just disproved every doubter. And I do think the more you doubt her, the more you try and attack her or criticize her. That's just going to inspire her even more. You know, she's always been possessed with this incredible will to win and that I think only intensified because of those early that early prejudice that she had to deal with She has been one of the more outspoken advocates of panity when it comes to terms, conditions, pay and the way in which they are treated by competitions and the governing bodies Yeah, absolutely. and credit too to Venus because it was Venus who campaigned vociferously and lobbied Wimbledon to introduce equal prize money, which they did in two thousand seven, becoming the last of the four Grand Sams to do it But yeah, Serena has followed that path too. been a big advocate for women's tennis spoken about the importance of women's role models for the bllack communities as well. and you know that's carried on into her life post tennis as an investor. you know part of what she does is making sure that underrepresented communities People are black women's communities do get the kind of representation in the business world that they should. She has always been an advocate and a trailblazer and that's not easy. You know, that's adding another layer of pressure and tennis players often They want to focus on their careers first and foremost. So to be able to kind of see beyond that is a testament to her level of perspective I suppose I probably shouldn't be surprised about this given what twenty three grand slams and understandably a competitive streak a mile long. but there have been occasions on which It is felt that perhaps Serena Williams' temper has got the better of her. and I think of that twenty eighteen final in the US open. Just remind us what happened there. Yeah, I mean, this was really this was a really difficult night. She was penalized basically for receiving on court coaching, which is now legal, but it wasn't back then. and her coach Patrick Moratoglu was making gestures to her She got penalized, she disputed it and it unraveveled and the penalty got more severe and more severe. She really went for the Empire. she did and it created this really uncomfortable atmosphere and she ended up losing the match to Nomi Osaka Osaka's first grandstown title and Osaka who remains, but certainly them was an extremely shy person. She was basically in tears during the trophy ceremony because it had all got so toxic in the stadium. The crowd was so force arena They were so anti the umpire and for penalizing her So it was a really uncomfortable situation. and that was such a huge story because everyone had a view, everyone was weighing in on You know, whether she'd been treated unfairly, whether Her reputation had that gone before her because of course, there were times where she did have run inss with umpires. There was an incident with the lions person. the U.S. Op as well a few years before. I'm sure that's An incident she really doesn't look back on with any fondness, but at the same time, I imagine she she would also stick to her guns because I do think she felt she was treated unfairly. Definitely a difficult night for everyone But when she did decide to hang up her rackquet in a tenniskt, what was the stated reason for that? Was it just trying to step away from the game Well, she talked about, u evolving away from from tenennis. So yeah, she never used the R word. I mean, as well, she was about forty years old. It was a perfectly natural and normal. I mean it was beyond, way beyond what most people play up until she'd had a lot of injuries You know, she was already a mother by this point. She won just just another kind of Ludicrous achievement of h herers. She won the Australian openp in twenty seventeen while pregnant. I mean, it just kind of yeah, I mean how else can you react that but just laugh? I mean, it's genuinely laughable. So she's already a mother. I think she felt it was time to do other things. She has always had a lot of outside interests. I mentioned before, she's a big investor and that sort of thing. And I think she just she felt it was time. but obviously, you know, four years away, she's got that itch again to come back Interestingly, while she has been away from the sport, she has been on something of kind of a health and fitness journey and involved herself to an extent in the kind of the discussion around weight loss drugs. What do we know about that? So she's a celebrity ambassador for the telehealth Company Roe, representing the GLP Mers onene weight loss and healthcare, management programs. So she's given interviews. she's a big advocate for normalizing weight loss medications. And you know, she's talked about how when she was playing, she does think she suffered a little bit. She had trouble with her joints and she feels if she was able to have takaking the GOP minus ones while playing that could have helped us. So that is an interesting wrinkle to this because she's coming back and there always has been a lot of focus on her appearance. and I don't think That's a positive thing, but that is the way of it. And also this question about whether those sorts of medications will become banned by antid doping authorities, which they're not at the moment But that is something to keep an eye on. I can well understand why the public are going doo lally about the prospect of seeing Serena Williams again, but what for her What do you think has motivated this decision? Is it just a matter of an itch that needed to be scratched? or does she think she can win stuff So she's talked about it as being, you know one of her main motivations is so her kids can see her play which I do think is a really cool thing. and Her young ger one wasn't born when she was last playing and the older one was at an age where I think she struggled to really remember it So I totally get that aspect of it. I think as well she kind of like any athlete, she thrives on competition. Lindsey Vagh, she cited as an inspiration as well and Venus, her sister who has been playing Singles, she was forty five when she came back after Not as long an absence as Serena's and she never officially retired. But she was gone for more than a year pretty much, Venus. then came back last summer and has been competitive. She won her first match actually back on the singles court. has lost them all since. something like eight matches, but most have been close. and so I think was inspired by that as well, the fact that Venus was being competitive. And all of those things combined, and I think she felt Yeah, why not? Let's do it while I still can because You know, the window is closing and even for someone as superhuman as Serena Williams, there is a limit to when she'd been able to make this kind of comeback Does it then matter if she is back to win matches or not. I mean, where would you put the Serena Williams comeback when we think of, you know other big kind of sporting comebacks of the past Yeah, I think that is a really interesting question because Will it be enough for her to just be competitive? especially just on the doubles score, which is where she started. The assumption is that she will move on to playing singles, but at the moment it's just doubles. It's one thing when it's her first couple of matches back and the novelty' there and great, you know, she's competitive. Earlier this week as we speak, she lost six four, six four in at the Bell in open with Karolina Muckvver Totally respectable. I mean, it's fantastic for someone who's forty four, but she's not just a normal forty four year old. She's Serena Williams so If it doesn't translate to victories, which it may well do. mayaybe at Wimbledon with Venus, it does But I am curious at what point what exactly her aims are because she is so competitive. That's the thing. And like it was clear very quickly in her first matchback, which she won at Queens last week with Victoria Bokca that this isn't a jolly. You know she's not there just to have a laugh and have fun. She's there to win. She was taking incredibly seriously She looked very nervous, which you might not expect from someone who's won so many big titles. I think were she to actually start winning things or even being vaguely competitive in sunence singles. then that's got to be one of the best sporting comebacks ever. I mean, Martina Avreatolova won a mixed doubles title when she was forty nine But mixed doubles is very, very different from even from doubles, let alone singles, you know, it's very different. Was she to do something in singles? I think that would be pretty extraordinary, especially in a sport like tennis, which is so physical. And that's why I do think it's important certainly on the single side to manage expectations a little bit. She is playing people half her age. And even Namia Osaka who was in her mid twenties and was only off for a year on maternity leave when she came back for the start of the twenty four season. it took her a long time. We're talking about that' someone It's actually twenty years younger than Serena is now. I think But even being competitive in singles would be a big achievement. An much beyond that, and yah, we're talking all time great comebacks Look, you are immersed in this world in a way in which the rest of us just just simply are not. How excited is it for someone in your profession doing what you do that the greatest female player of all time is coming back for a kind of a farewell tour, if we want to call it anything Yeah, I mean, it's it's a pretty dream like scenario really because it's the sort of thing that we U tennis writers would talk about late one night at a grand slam, once we finish working and we go and have dinner and a drink maybe and we think about what play would you most like to see come back? It's kind of a fantasy situation. You don't actually expect it to happen. so Yeah, for us as well as for her, it's a just a kind of crazy hypothetical. And so it is incredibly exciting. and also You know, it's always great when the sport that you cover is