There is a saying in sports that “Father Time is undefeated”. Eventually, every great athlete ages to the point where their skills and physical abilities are diminished to the point they can no longer compete at the high level that fans have come to expect.
There are few examples of athletes who walked away from the game “too early”–and may have left some additional greatness unrealized. Jim Brown is always the first one I think of. He quit football at the age of 30–after leading the NFL in rushing again–to do movies and to be a social activist. Barry Sanders walked away from the NFL at 31–after rushing for nearly 1500 yards the season before–in part, to honor his dad’s belief that he was not better than Jim Brown. Annika Sorenstam left the LPGA tour at 37–then, still a prime age for a golfer–to start a family.
But otherwise, sports is riddled with all-time greats that hang on several years past their primes, often traveling from team to team for lackluster seasons that diminish their overall stature with fans. See Babe Ruth with the Boston Braves, Johnny Unitas with the San Diego Chargers, Jerry Rice with the Denver Broncos, and Shaquille O’Neal with the Boston Celtics.
Those athletes at least had someone in team management tell them that they were done and it was time to quit. But for individual sports athletes, there isn’t that final roster cutdown and the phone doesn’t sit silent when teams aren’t interested in you anymore. And that, unfortunately, is where 40-year old Serena Williams finds herself now.
I couldn’t help but think of those that held on too long during Serena’s first round loss to Harmony Tan yesterday at Wimbledon. As recently as a few years ago, Serena losing to a player of Tan’s caliber would lead to talk show segments and web articles about “What is wrong with Serena Williams?” But, the stories yesterday were all about the “incredible heart this legend showed in a marathon tie-break match”.
There is no doubt about it, Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player in history. Her 23 Grand Slam singles titles will never be approached by anyone in ladies tennis. She brought a level of athleticism and power to the sport that overwhelmed the legends that she displaced at the top of the game–and has now become the standard throughout women’s tennis. She won the Australian Open in 2017 while 20-weeks pregnant–gave birth to her daughter–and came back to compete for Grand Slam titles less than a year later. (As an aside, it’s feats like this that make me roll my eyes hard when sportscasters use the phrase “That’s his first win as a father!!” when guys win a game or a tournament after their wife gives birth.)
I’ll admit, I was not the biggest fan of Serena or her sister, Venus, when they arrived on the tennis scene. A lot of that had to do with their father, Richard, who endlessly told the media that his kids were going to “dominate the sport for decades to come” before they had won anything–and partly because the two obviously tanked matches when the draw required them to play against each other. But it was Serena’s tenacity and ability to somehow dig deep inside of herself to win so often, even when she didn’t have her best stuff on the court every day, that won me over. Plus, she has been the lone vanguard of American tennis success for what feels like 20-years now.
But as a fan, I am ready for Serena to step away from the game (at least as a singles player–she could probably still dominate doubles tennis with a quality partner). I don’t want to hear post-match press conferences where she talks about being “this close” to finding the magic again. I don’t want her to be a “ceremonial player”, showing up at just the majors to soak in adulation from the fans as a “living legend”. I hope that at this year’s US Open in September, she makes the announcement that she will no longer play in the singles draw after this year–and then go on a Cinderella run deep in the tournament with the crazy New York crowd urging her on for one final reminder of her generational greatness.
Serena Williams is the lioness in winter–reluctant to hand over her crown–even though she knows she has to. So let’s remember her for the dominating wins on center courts around the world–and not have to witness any more first-round exits to players should once could have beaten playing left-handed.
