Tennis superstars have ended their playing careers in many ways.
Twenty years ago, Pete Sampras won what turned out to be his final tournament, the 2002 U.S. Open, but did not announce his retirement until nearly a year later, making it a walk-off Grand Slam that did not quite feel like one.
Ashleigh Barty came closer: winning the Australian Open this year to solidify her No. 1 ranking and then stunning the tennis world by retiring just seven weeks later at age 25.
Chris Evert announced her impending retirement in a cover story in Sports Illustrated before the 1989 U.S. Open with the of-its-era headline “I’m Going to Be a Full-Time Wife.” Seeded No. 4 in New York, she lost in the quarterfinals to Zina Garrison but still went out a champion, sweeping all of her singles matches in October to lead the United States to victory in the Fed Cup in Tokyo with her teammate and rival Martina Navratilova
John McEnroe never officially retired at all, and his archrival Bjorn Borg retired young at 26, only to come back ineffectually eight years later — more in search of money than meaning and still wielding a wooden racket — and then step away for good.
In December 1995, Stefan Edberg, another smooth Swedish star, announced that the 1996 season would be his last. He ended up regretting it, drained emotionally by the extended goodbye and weary of the pomp and circumstance. Edberg, happiest in low key, later counseled Roger Federer, the superstar he helped coach in 2014 and 2015, to avoid any extended farewell tours.
That does seem like sage advice, and Serena Williams is more in the mainstream with her decision to give advance notice (but presumably not too much advance notice). She announced Aug. 9 in a first-person essay for Vogue that she was “evolving away from tennis,” indicating that she was playing one more U.S. Open even if she was “terrible at goodbyes” and “not looking for some ceremonial, final on-court moment.”
That will presumably be much harder to avoid in New York than it was this month in Mason, Ohio, where she walked off center court without ceremony or even an interview after losing to Emma Raducanu in the first round of the Western & Southern Open. If Williams does indeed make the U.S. Open her last tournament — essentially doing the unexpected by doing the expected — her approach to goodbye will feel similar to Andre Agassi’s.
Agassi, an enduring and charismatic American champion, announced at Wimbledon in 2006 that his last tournament would be the 2006 U.S. Open, giving himself and his fans some processing time.
Like Williams, who has knee tendinitis, he was dealing with chronic pain: a back condition, in Agassi’s case. He, too, was short on matches, losing early in his hardcourt warm-up events and, like Williams, arriving unseeded in New York with limited expectations. His run to the third round felt like a victory, much as winning a couple of singles matches this week might feel for Williams.
She has not ruled out playing more beyond New York, but it seems unlikely, particularly with her lining up to play doubles with her sister Venus for the first time at the U.S. Open since 2014. That seems the perfect final note for the extraordinary Williamses, long viewed as a pair.
Source : NYtimes
