Serena Williams’s retirement is no fairytale – it’s a heartbreaking choice between family and career

Retirement from sport rarely plays out the way it is depicted in movies. We picture an athlete finishing with a win against the odds, having achieved everything they wanted out of the sport and moving happily into the next phase of their life.

In reality, very few athletes finish with a win. No matter how hard they wish for it, they walk away having lost a final, or without making a final at all. And all too often retirement is forced – through injury or non-selection – and the athlete is left with a niggling feeling that they left unfinished business behind.

In most people’s eyes, Serena Williams falls more into the Hollywood fantasy category. She holds the Open-era record of 23 Grand Slam titles; she has four Olympic gold medals; and her childhood has been memorialised in the 2021 film King Richard. She has been outspoken and unapologetically herself, she has inspired people across the world.

If she wins the US Open next month, she even has a shot at the complete fairytale ending – bowing out with a win on the biggest stage.

Except that in Williams’s mind, it would not be a fairytale. She does not feel the way many athletes do when they retire after a long career – physically and emotionally ravaged by years in the often-brutal world of elite sport. Despite all her achievements, her full trophy cabinet, the millions she has inspired, Williams is likely to walk away feeling like she has unfinished business – whether or not she wins that final tournament.

She is making a choice that women all over the world make every day: family or career? The 40-year-old has been upfront about her wish to have a second child. After the complications that nearly killed her following the birth of her first child Olympia, having another