KEVIN MCCALLUM: A ‘setback’ for Serena, but one she will turn into a victory

Serena Williams returns a ball during her match against Switzerland's Belinda Bencic during the National Bank Open in Toronto on August 10 2022.

The last may not be her most famous quote, but it works well enough. The next three must, surely, are easy to answer: she is Serena Williams, a girl straight out of Compton who overcame barriers of race and background to win 23 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam doubles and four Olympic gold medals. She is, as Etan Thomas wrote in the Guardian on Thursday, a “beacon to black girls everywhere”.

She overcame racism, body-shaming and double standards. She has had to do more than others to be considered a superstar because of the way she looks and doing it her way. She has transcended to a level that, to quote Thomas again, is “unapologetic greatness”. “I have never liked the word retirement. It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me,” wrote Williams. “I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, towards other things that are important to me.

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