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"contents": "<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tennis legend Serena Jameka Williams has announced that she will be retiring, which I suppose we were all expecting but are nevertheless stunned by.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hailed not only as the best tennis player in the world, she has also won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any player in the Open Era. We are privileged to have had the honour of watching and experiencing her sheer and unrelenting athleticism, which places her firmly in the world’s greatest athletes history books.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Though I could go on about her athletic prowess, what really drew me to Serena and her older sister Venus (also an explosive tennis player in her time) when they first came on to the world tennis circuit was that it was the first time that I, and many black girls like me growing up in the Nineties, had seen someone who looked like me on such a massive stage.</span>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1354136\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/GettyImages-1630633.jpg\" alt=\"venus serena\" width=\"720\" height=\"470\" /> Venus (left) and Serena Williams take time off from a practice session to pose together during the Adidas International event at White City in Sydney, Australia. 16 January 1998. (Photo: Clive Brunskill)</p>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The sisters dominated headlines not only because of what was then considered flamboyant hair and attire, but also because the world was in awe of their unapologetic power, tenacity and athletic prowess, something previously seen as the domain of men.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They played in such a way that they could not be ignored, and with such conviction about their talent and capabilities. In an interview with a 14-year-old Venus, an incredulous journalist asked about an upcoming match.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interviewer: “Do you think you can beat her?”</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Venus: “I know I can beat her.”</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interviewer: “You say it so easily. Why?”</span>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1354135\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/GettyImages-1357570.jpg\" alt=\"williams family 1992\" width=\"720\" height=\"1059\" /> Serena Williams with her sister Venus and father Richard Williams at a tennis camp in Florida. (Photo: Ken Levine )</p>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At this point Richard Williams intervened, visibly annoyed and protective of his daughter, and effectively told the interviewer to stop badgering his daughter and trying to undermine her confidence.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The confidence of the Williams sisters in their talent defied many people’s expectations. Their father, also their coach, propelled them to the heights that they reached. He started coaching them when Venus turned four.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In his biopic, Richard Williams says: “The most dangerous creature on this whole Earth is a woman who knows how to think; ain’t nothing she can’t do.” </span>\r\n\r\n<hr />\r\n\r\n<strong>Visit <a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=in_article_link&utm_campaign=homepage\"><em>Daily Maverick's</em> home page</a> for more news, analysis and investigations</strong>\r\n\r\n<hr />\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Serena represents for many black women and girls the ability to exist outside of a preconceived mould of what femininity looks and behaves like. She also shows that black women belong in all spheres of our society and can be loud and muscular and show emotion and break unimaginable boundaries to achieve an excellence that cannot be denied or subdued.</span>\r\n\r\nhttps://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-08-09-tennis-great-serena-williams-to-retire-after-us-open/\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In an interview with </span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vogue</span></i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> magazine on her retirement, Serena said: “There is no happiness in this topic for me. I know it’s not the usual thing to say, but I feel a great deal of pain. It’s the hardest thing that I could ever imagine. I hate it.” An indicator that the premium of time needs to be recognised and appreciated because it gives no second chances.</span>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1354127\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/GettyImages-159512227.jpg\" alt=\"serena australian open\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" /> Serena Williams plays a forehand against Edina Gallovits-Hall of Romania during day two of the 2013 Australian Open. (Photo: Robert Prezioso / Getty Images)</p>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is up to us to cram in as much unfettered and passionate living as we can while time is still on our side. We were all hoping that Serena would win 24 Grand Slams (at least) but this shouldn’t blind us to the magnitude of what it takes to achieve 23 of them while facing odds that would have overwhelmed most of us. All that is left to say now is thank you, Serena. </span><b>DM168</b>\r\n\r\n<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This story first appeared in our weekly </span></i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Maverick 168</span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.</span></i>\r\n\r\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1365806\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DM-20082022001jhbis.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"947\" />",
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Venus (left) and Serena Williams take time off from a practice session to pose together during the Adidas International event at White City in Sydney, Australia. 16 January 1998. (Photo: Clive Brunskill)
Serena Williams with her sister Venus and father Richard Williams at a tennis camp in Florida. (Photo: Ken Levine )
Serena Williams plays a forehand against Edina Gallovits-Hall of Romania during day two of the 2013 Australian Open. (Photo: Robert Prezioso / Getty Images)