Serena's Husband Alexis Wrote The Most Supportive Note For Her Ahead Of Her Retirement
"You simply cannot overstate the breadth and depth of influence she's had on so many people."
Queen of tennis Serena Williams announced she will be retiring after the US Open and bid farewell to tennis in Vogue’s September 2022 cover story published on Aug. 9. There has been overwhelming support for her decision, as fans have celebrated her truly iconic career in the sport. As always, Williams got the most touching bit of support from her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. He shared a sweet Instagram post on Aug. 12 with a photo of himself and their four-year-old daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., with a caption expressing his support for his wife.
“I've seen over the last 7 years how much y'all love my wife—what she means to so many, worldwide. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. Plenty of folks have told me ‘how Reddit changed their life,’ but the scale & impact of ‘how Serena changed my life’ stories absolutely dwarfs it,” he wrote on Instagram. “And that's just the stuff I hear when people come up to me to say hi. You simply cannot overstate the breadth and depth of influence she's had on so many people. As far as I can tell, she has no idea. @serenawilliams doesn't think about it, or even realize it.”
The couple has been together since 2015 after meeting in Rome while both staying at the Cavalieri Hotel. They married in November 2017 after Ohanian proposed to Williams in December 2016 at the same hotel they met at. How romantic!
Williams made her professional tennis debut in Quebec City, Canada, at age 14 in 1995 and went on to win her first Grand Slam in 1999 at 17. Since then, she’s taken home 23 Grand Slam singles titles and been ranked numerous times as the world’s number one singles player by the Women's Tennis Association. Her decision to “move on from playing tennis” came from wanting to focus on building her family. She wrote in a first-person Vogue story, “But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter.”
She and her husband have been trying to have another child, and she wrote, “I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.” As for what’s next in her career, she has been focusing on building Serena Ventures, a venture capital company she founded in 2014. “In my own life, the balance has been slowly shifting toward Serena Ventures,” she wrote.
In a bittersweet farewell, she wrote, “But please know that I am more grateful for you than I can ever express in words. You have carried me to so many wins and so many trophies. I’m going to miss that version of me, that girl who played tennis. And I’m going to miss you.” We’ll miss you too, Serena.
