Why Serena Williams is taking another shot at Wimbledon

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:09How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. She's arguably the greatest woman to ever play the game. Now Serena Williams is returning to tennis after years away. This is why.

0:52Summer 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. The grass courts of Wimbledon, the strawberries, the champagne. And until a few years ago, Serena Williams. I will 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. And there's no like adrenaline like that. Her love for the game was matched only by her success.

1:23And yet, almost four years ago, she hung up her racket. It's all over this time. Serena's last dance is at an end. But was her retirement ever as final as it first appeared? Is there any chance you'll reconsider? I don't think so, but you never know. Well, she's back. She competed at the Queen's 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? And does she still have what it takes to compete as fiercely as she once did? Charlie Eccleshire is senior tennis writer for The Athletic.

2:02Charlie, 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, who, 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 97. So we're talking very nearly 30 years ago. She won her first title in 2000. So these two have been important figures at Wimbledon for so long.

2:43They'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 coupled, I think, just with the curiosity of seeing how even these great legends, how can you still play professional tennis when you're 44 in Serena's case and Venus has just turned 46. So 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 outrank her, I would imagine, in terms of the success that she had.

3:19Just run us through the long, long list of the things that Serena's actually won in her time. Well, 23 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 for 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 60s, she does stand alone. And I think is generally regarded as the greatest player of all time.

3:53You 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 probably 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 serve tends to be at its most important because it's the quickest of the surfaces.

4:31She 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 15 years old at Wimbledon 97. 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.

5:05She was blessed with that serve, with that power, but technically as well, so secure, just didn't really have a weakness. And all of that came together to make her pretty much the undisputed greatest of all time. You read an interview with her when she was 15 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, but who everything he prophesied did come to pass. I mean, he said that these two were going to be Grand Slam champions from a very young age.

5:40And, you know, they're growing up in Compton, South Central LA, 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. It was 91. So, you know, Serena at this point is barely 10 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.

6:19He 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, How fair is it to say that Serena Williams, in and of herself, changed the women's game of tennis forever? Oh, 100%. 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 Hingis, 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.

7:01And I was talking to another player from around that era who retired not long after Serena and Venus 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 Sharapova came along, huge hitter. But Serena absolutely dominated her. Irina Sabalenka is the world number one huge hitter as well so it did change the game I mean there were big hitters before as well you know Monica Seles when she emerged in the late 80s early 90s she was a game changer too but no question Serena took it to another level and raised 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 going to really struggle unless you're utterly exceptional.

8:08How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast Stuff Matters I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

8:44There 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 received an awful lot of criticism and others, you would call it unwanted attention, just because of the way that she looked. She had to deal with so much prejudice and the dignity with which she did deal with that was quite amazing because bear in mind that when Venus won Wimbledon in 2000. That was the first time that a black woman had won Wimbledon since Althea Gibson.

9:21That was in 1958. And tennis was a sport where an Arthur Ashe had been such a trailblazer as well. But there was a huge amount of racism and prejudice against black women and men trying to 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 as if that was some sort of negative thing.

9:55And, you know, the irony being there that people questioned her commitment to tennis. And here we are nearly 30 years after she made her debut and she's still playing. So she's just disproved every doubter. And I do think the more you doubt her, the more you try and attack her or criticise 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.

10:35Yeah, 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 2007, becoming the last of the four grand slams 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 black communities as well. And that's carried on into her life post-tennis as an investor. Part of what she does is making sure that underrepresented communities, people who are black, certain women's communities do get the kind of representation in the business world that they should.

11:15She 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, 23 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 2018 final in the US Open. Just remind us what happened there.

11:52Yeah, I mean, this was a really difficult night. She was penalised basically for receiving on-court coaching, which is now legal, but it wasn't back then. And her coach, Patrick Morotoglu, was making gestures to her. She got penalised, she disputed it, and it unravelled and the penalty got more severe and more severe. And she really went for the umpire, she did. And it created this really uncomfortable atmosphere. And she ended up losing the match to Naomi Osaka. It was Osaka's first Grand Slam title. and Osaka who remains, but certainly that was an extremely shy person. She was basically in tears during the trophy ceremony because it had all got so toxic in the stadium.

12:34The crowd was so forced, Serena. They were so anti the umpire and for penalising 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-ins with umpires. There was an incident with the Lions person. The US Open 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 would also stick to her guns because I do think she felt she was treated unfairly.

13:16Definitely a difficult night for everyone. But when she did decide to hang up her racket and her tennis skirt, what was the stated reason for that? Was it just time to step away from the game? Well, she talked about evolving away from tennis. So, yeah, she never used the R word. I mean, as well, she was about 40 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 another kind of ludicrous achievement of hers. She won the Australian Open in 2017 while pregnant.

13:53I mean, it just kind of, yeah. I mean, how else can you react to that but just laugh? I mean, it is genuinely laughable. You know, 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 a kind of a health and fitness journey. Yeah. and involved herself to an extent in the discussion around weight loss drugs.

14:27What do we know about that? So she's a celebrity ambassador for the telehealth company Roe, representing the GLP-1 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 taken the GLP-1s while playing, that could have helped her. 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.

15:00And 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 anti-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 doolally 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.

15:35And her younger 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 Vonn, she cited as an inspiration as well. And Venus, her sister, who has been playing singles. She was 45 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.

16:14Has 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?

16:50Yeah, I think that is a really interesting question because will it be enough for her to just be competitive, especially just on the doubles core, which is where she started? The assumption is that she will move on to playing singles, but at the moment it's just doubles. And it's one thing when it's her first couple of matches back and the novelty's there and great, you know, she's competitive. Earlier this week, as we speak, she lost 6-4, 6-4 at the Berlin Open with Karolina Mukhova. which was totally respectable. I mean, it's fantastic for someone who's 44, but she's not just a normal 44-year-old.

17:22She's Serena Williams. And so if it doesn't translate to victories, which it may well do, maybe 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 match back, which she won at Queen's last week with Victoria and Boko, 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 it incredibly seriously. She looked very nervous, which you might not expect from somebody who's won so many big titles. I think were she to actually start winning things or even being vaguely competitive in singles, then that's got to be one of the best sporting comebacks ever.

18:03I mean, Martina Navratilova won a mixed doubles title when she was 49. But mixed doubles is very, very different from, even from doubles, let alone singles. 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 singles side, to manage expectations a little bit. She is playing people half her age. And even Naomi Osaka, who was in her mid-20s and was only off for a year on maternity leave, when she came back for the start of the 2024 season, it took her a long time.

18:40And we're talking about that someone basically 20 years younger than Serena is now. I think even being competitive in singles would be a big achievement. Anything much beyond that. And yeah, we're talking all-time great comebacks. Look, you are immersed in this world in a way in which the rest of us 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 a pretty dreamlike scenario, really, because it's the sort of thing that we, us tennis writers, would talk about late one night at a Grand Slam.

19:22Once we finish working and we go and have dinner and a drink, maybe, and we think about what player 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 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 feels like the center of the universe and Wimbledon has a way of doing that anyway let alone we throw Serena Williams in and yeah it'll be fantastic and such a privilege as well to be there and to see this thing unfolding so many people are going to be desperate to try and get a ticket any way they can I'm just so curious as well because that's always talked about as a hypothetical and we're going to get to see that play out so yeah that's pretty cool charlie i will keep my fingers crossed that both you and serena have a fantastic summer all the best and thanks very much for joining us really appreciate it thank you and that's your lot for this week on this is why do remember to get in touch with your ideas for future episodes we covered one of them yesterday in an episode examining exactly how we can return security to the strait of hornos why at sky.uk is the email address have a lovely weekend we'll see you the other side

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