SERENA WILLIAMS, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, announced today her imminent retirement from the sport.

The 23-time grand slam champion won her first singles match for more than a year at the Canadian Open in Toronto on Monday evening but has revealed in a first-person piece for Vogue that she has decided to end her career.

“I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me,” she wrote.

Williams has committed to playing at the Cincinnati Masters next week as well as the US Open later this month, and it appears that will be her final tournament.

“Unfortunately I wasn’t ready to win Wimbledon this year,” said the 40-year-old. “And I don’t know if I will be ready to win New York. But I’m going to try. And the lead-up tournaments will be fun.

“I know there’s a fan fantasy that I might have tied Margaret [Court on 24 slam singles titles] that day in London, then maybe beat her record in New York, and then at the trophy ceremony say: ‘See ya!’

“I get that. It’s a good fantasy. But I’m not looking for some ceremonial final on-court moment. I’m terrible at goodbyes, the world’s worst.”

Williams revealed her motivation behind calling it quits is the desire to have a second child and that she was trying for another baby during her absence from tennis for a year until Wimbledon this summer.

She returned to the sport early in 2018 following the birth of daughter Olympia the previous year, having been pregnant when she won her last slam title at the Australian Open.

“I’m turning 41 [in September], and something’s got to give,” she wrote. “In the last year, Alexis and I have been trying to have another child, and we recently got some information from my doctor that put my mind at ease and made me feel that, whenever we’re ready, we can add to our family.

“I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”

Williams admitted the decision to leave tennis is a hard one, saying: “It’s the hardest thing that I could ever imagine. I hate it. I hate that I have to be at this crossroads. I keep saying to myself: ‘I wish it could be easy for me,’ but it’s not.

“I’m torn. I don’t want it to be over but, at the same time, I’m ready for what’s next.

“I don’t know how I’m going to be able to look at this magazine when it comes out, knowing that this is it, the end of a story that started in Compton, California, with a little black girl who just wanted to play tennis.”

The next generation will struggle to follow the tremendous achievements made throughout Williams’s career. Regarded as one of the most influential sports figures of the 21^st century, Williams won more grand slam singles titles (23) than any other woman or man during the open era.

In addition, Serena and her sister Venus won 14 grand slam doubles titles, the second most for a pair in the open era, and three doubles gold medals at the Olympics. 

Williams overcame adversity in many forms, from facing a long history of racist and sexist attacks by the public and the media, to a number of life-threatening pulmonary embolisms, a C-section and postpartum depression.

“Home” support was far from guaranteed in the US and the most shameful episode came in Indian Wells in 2001 when fans jeered Serena after suspecting foul play in Venus’s withdrawal ahead of a semi-final clash with her sister. Venus and their father, Richard Williams, said they were racially abused in the stands.

The sisters boycotted the event for more than a decade and gossip about the outcome of matches between them being predetermined persisted for years.

“The cycles of poverty, discrimination and sexism,” she wrote in 2018, “are much, much harder to break than the record for grand slam titles.” Her legacy as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, and one of the pioneering black female athletes in the sport, will continue to inspire women everywhere for decades to come.