Serena Williams prepares for emotional final tournament at US Open

Boyzone were top of the charts and more than a quarter of the women’s top 100 had not been born when Serena Williams made her US Open debut 24 years ago.

Already a superstar in the making at 16, Williams has been the talk of tennis ever since and will be celebrated as such at Flushing Meadows as she marks the end of one of the great sporting careers.

A few weeks short of her 41st birthday and keen to focus on trying to have a second child, Williams has decided, reluctantly, that now is the time to hang up her racket.

While she has played sparingly over the last few years and women like Naomi Osaka, Ashleigh Barty and Iga Swiatek have staked their claim at the top of the game, Williams remained the alpha female of the tour and her retirement will leave an inescapable hole.

Most of her fellow competitors in New York have known only tennis with Williams in it.

Former US Open finalist Madison Keys told the PA news agency: “I grew up watching Serena, I idolised her forever and being able to play against her multiple times on the tour, those are still some of the most memorable matches that I’ve ever played and they will also be some of the most special moments that I’ve had on a tennis court.

“I’m going to be very sad to no longer see her playing tennis but I think she’s going to continue to do amazing things.

“She doesn’t want to use the word retirement and I’m not going to use the word retirement, I think it’s just truly evolving into the next part of her life and I think, as with everything she does, it’s going to be phenomenal and incredibly successful.”

As well as her family commitments, Williams has several business ventures, including an investment company that looks set to be at the centre of what she does next.

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