In the Arena: Serena Williams (2024) s01e08 Episode Script
This Is You
1
[Serena Williams] Serena,
the game is mental.
Good thoughts are powerful.
Negative thoughts are weak.
[Richard Williams] This is you
at the U.S. Open.
[Serena speaking]
Your vision will become your life.
[laughter]
Hold on to the thought of what you want.
Make it absolutely clear in your mind.
[Serena speaking]
You attract what you think about most.
That's how you create a champion.
[dramatic music playing]
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
now champion,
the legendary Serena Williams.
[crowd cheers]
[Alexis Ohanian]
We both knew the stakes.
We both knew the history she was making.
She was already making history
breaking Steffi's record
and setting the record of Grand Slams,
but do it while pregnant, whew.
Right.
But it wasn't a conversation, frankly,
until she won.
There was a little gathering afterwards,
and then we went upstairs.
Like, it was the most
non-debaucherous celebration
you can imagine.
And I think it was
that grounding, though,
that was setting us up
for the next chapter.
[reporter] A representative of hers
has confirmed she is pregnant.
Serena is expecting a baby this fall.
Being pregnant.
Winning a Grand Slam title.
Now, I've never done either,
but I hear both can be challenging.
Well, apparently Serena Williams
did them both
at the same time earlier this year.
That's right.
She was about eight weeks pregnant
when she won the Australian Open.
[Serena] I remember growing up,
and I always
wanted to be a tennis player,
but I've always wanted to be a mom,
and I always knew I was gonna be a mom,
and that's something
that I've always wanted.
Since I was a little kid,
I always imagined myself as a father.
It felt as natural as anything else.
I was just coming to terms
thinking of myself as a husband.
And then all of a sudden,
turning around and being, like,
"Oh, great. Okay. Now I'm gonna
think about myself as a dad."
It's a Friday night.
I'm in Publix going shopping
because my fiancé has cravings.
I was told there would be cravings.
I was not told they would be these.
Zucchini, asparagus, and
What's this one called again?
When I was pregnant,
I felt like I was losing everything
that I thought Serena was.
[reporter] Tennis legend
and entrepreneur Serena Williams
says that adding "mom" to her résumé
won't slow her down.
[Serena] Ending my career in 2017
was never going to happen.
I wasn't done. It wasn't me.
[reporter] Serena's rep says
she'll definitely
not return to tennis in 2017,
but look for her to be back in 2018.
[Serena] Your body starts to change
in that last four months,
and you put your body through so much.
I felt you kick yesterday.
It was amazing.
[Serena] It's all fresh and it's all new
and it's all really scary.
You don't really know what to expect.
Even though
you can read a zillion books,
it can't prepare you
for what is about to happen.
[mildly tense music playing]
They wanted me to have the baby
August 20-something or 30th,
and I wanted a September baby
because I'm born in September,
and I wanted my daughter
to be born in September.
So I held it. I was, like, no, no, no.
I'm, like, one of the only people
that are, like, no.
I'll keep her longer.
[Alexis] What did you say
when someone said that our little girl
was gonna win Wimbledon
in, like, 15-20 years?
[Serena] Not if I'm still on tour.
[laughter]
[Serena] August 31st, they said
if you don't go into labor naturally,
we're gonna induce you to go into labor.
So they induced me on August 31.
Every time I had a contraction,
Olympia's heart rate
would go down really far.
There's this almost palpable anxiety
I guess with any
first time parent for sure.
And then you layer on
Serena's pre-existing health conditions,
and then it's, like,
hey, the show's about to begin.
And now, all right,
actually she's not doing great.
Eventually they said
we need to have a C-section,
because we gotta get the baby out.
Serena's, like, "Cool. All right.
Whatever you need. No problem."
[indistinct chatter]
[Alexis] But you got your scrubs on.
You're waiting, they bring you in.
They sit you next to her
on the other side of the sheet.
No way I'm looking over
that other side of the sheet.
[doctor] Take some deep breaths, okay?
[Alexis] Take deep breaths, baby.
You did such a great job.
The doctor's working down there,
moving things around.
Okay, baby pops out. Okay.
[doctor] Here she comes!
Look, she's screaming already.
[Alexis] Oh, there's the baby.
Look at that happy baby.
[laughing] Look at that happy baby.
She put her little victory pose up
when we first saw her. Had her hands up.
That's my baby girl. Let's go, Olympia.
She's got Dad's complexion,
but she's your baby.
[woman] Here, Mama.
[Serena] Aw, you're so cute.
[nurse] I'll help. I'll readjust.
What we're gonna do,
I'm gonna have you help me.
[Serena] I got to hold her,
and then, you know,
I was getting to know her,
so it was a different feeling for me.
And obviously I loved her,
but it was more of, like, a protection.
[Alexis] How you feeling, Mama?
I'm feeling good.
You did it. We did it.
You feel your ego just melt.
For the first time ever,
you're, like, I am not
the center of the universe.
Like, this little human
is the most important person
I have ever met,
and I will do anything for this person.
We came in as two.
We're going out as three.
Everything was fine
until the second day of the C-section.
I remember
Alexis' stepmother and his dad
were in one of the rooms
and they were talking to me,
and I just remember thinking
I can't breathe.
And so I took some steps back
and I was, like,
I just gotta get out of this room
because they were just talking,
and I couldn't hear
anything they were saying.
I was just thinking,
man, I'm really struggling to breathe,
so I really need to, like,
figure this out.
Serena's coughing,
she's not feeling great.
And this was around the time
when she realizes,
like, something's just not right.
[Serena] So I somehow
went back to my room
and I tell the nurse,
"Listen, I need to get a CAT scan
with dye in it
"so you guys can see everything
that's going on in my lungs,
"and then I need to get on
a heparin drip."
And so I'm literally
prescribing my order.
The nurses aren't quite listening,
the doctors aren't quite listening,
and I'm trying to advocate for her.
In that moment, I'm, like,
"Something does not feel right, people.
"Like, I hear what you're saying,
but I know what my wife is saying."
I'm still trying to be
respectful of the people here.
I know these are stressful jobs.
There's a part of me that's, like,
"Don't be that [bleep],"
but there's another
louder part of me that's, like,
"These people are not listening
to my damn wife,"
and at some point,
you have to be the [bleep] to advocate.
[Serena] So my doctor came in,
and I think she thought
I was delusional.
But it didn't matter, you know.
She totally listened to me
and she ended up doing what I asked for.
Because I've had to advocate
for myself so much in sport,
it was really important
that I didn't accept no as an answer.
I think it's important
for people to understand that
and know that, statistically,
African-American women
are often left to die.
You know, in many ways,
Serena's experience
is unfortunately
the embodiment of the challenge.
Because it's devastating to understand
that we already go through so much,
and to have to have your child
be without a mom
because of not listening
or because, you know, a lot of schools
are teaching their doctors
that Black women are dramatic
and they can take more pain.
And that's absurd.
Things seemed like they had stabilized,
and I went out to go get food
with my parents.
So we leave the room,
and the next thing, I swear,
a minute later I get a call from Jill.
"Hey, they gotta pull Serena in
for surgery."
Bah-bah-bah, something,
stitches, the clotting's not happening.
I was most concerned with her health.
That's the first thing
that came to my mind.
And just that everything would be okay.
You know, you have a newborn life,
and she can't even enjoy that
because she was so sick.
This was the longest, longest,
longest week, you know.
Multiple surgeries.
This should have been
the happiest time for her,
and she doesn't remember any of it
because she was medicated
or going through surgeries
or what have you.
[dramatic music playing]
[Serena] So we're leaving the hospital
after six-seven nights?
-Six nights?
-[Alexis] Yeah.
[Serena] It's been a long time.
But we had a lot of complications,
but look who we got.
We got a baby girl.
I was so obsessed with my daughter,
I never left her ever for 24 hours.
Tried to do my best
to create an environment at the house
where Serena could recover, could rest.
I was very stubborn,
so we didn't have a baby nurse
or a nanny, so it was just me.
[vocalizing]
Where's your belly?
Changing that first diaper,
I was, like, "Wow, I can do this.
"Okay. I got this."
It gave me a confidence to be a dad
that I have to this day,
and nothing's gonna faze me now
because we got through that.
[Serena] When I get home, you know,
I'm basically a zombie.
It was all a blur.
Like, I couldn't really
function very well.
And walking out to the mailbox was
that was my exercise.
And I would come back in,
and I would be so exhausted after that
that I would sleep
for the rest of the day.
That first walk,
she barely made it down the driveway.
And she's, like, I gotta turn around.
And she's bracing on me.
And I'm, like, "Come on.
We can go to the end of the street."
She's, like, "No, I really can't."
I'm, like, "[bleep] Okay."
I just had really small goals,
but I knew that I wanted to keep moving
and try to keep myself
as healthy as I could in those moments.
There was a bush.
I remember there was a bush
on the street that was her goal bush.
And every day go out a little further.
Some days she'd sneak out without me
and I'd get a little mad at her
and be, "Why you gonna go without me?
"What if you fall?
What if something happens?
"Like, you gotta let me know."
When she finally made it to that bush,
it was a big deal.
[Serena] At the same time,
I'm also dealing with
the big question of tennis.
Am I gonna play tennis again?
When I had Olympia,
I definitely always had tennis
on my mind.
And so she said,
"Look, these are the tournaments
I wanna play for.
"This is my strategy. This is my plan.
"Do you think we can make this work?"
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter] The last time we saw
Serena Williams on the court,
she won her 23rd Grand Slam title
at last year's Australian Open.
Here's what she told
the Vogue magazine folks.
"It's not a secret
that I have my sights on 25,"
and that means she wants to have
25 Grand Slam victories,
which would break the all-time record.
[Serena] Olympia,
you sure you wanna work out still?
[woman] Olympia, look. Look, Mama.
Whoo!
[Alexis] So I'm, like,
"Look, my job here
"is to support you
and what you think is best.
"I'm gonna tell you
I think you're coming back too early
"and you don't need to rush
any of this."
And of course, she's gonna say,
"I know my body better than anyone
and I think it's gonna be great."
And I'm just gonna say,
"All right. I've given you my feedback.
"You have dismissed it. That's fine.
"Let's figure out a plan
to make this work."
[announcer] Here is Serena Williams!
[crowd cheers]
[Alexis] She wouldn't talk about 24.
It was always about just coming back
to the sport that she loved
and that she knew
she was objectively great at,
and that's a hard drug to quit.
It's like a magnet, right?
When you love something,
you always just kind of
are drawn back to it,
especially when it's tennis season,
which is all the time.
[reporter] Serena's daughter was born
earlier this year on September 1st.
Then in November,
she married Alexis Ohanian
in a fairytale wedding in New Orleans.
[Jill] The baby was born September 1st.
Got a big offer for her to play
an exhibition in Abu Dhabi,
which she said yes to.
And I was, like, that's crazy.
You're four months,
you're breastfeeding. Like, what?
We went.
She was pumping five minutes
before she had to go on the court.
[Serena] And I would recommend
not necessarily breastfeeding
and playing a solo sport.
[laughs]
I feel like when I came back,
winning became inspiration
as opposed to Grand Slams.
And I became now
a completely different inspiration,
not just for tennis,
but just for so many women.
[Jill] Little by little,
she was playing herself back into shape.
There was a part of me that felt like
she needed to get back
as fast as she did
because she needed to prove to herself
that she could do it.
[reporter] We're in
for something special, I have a feeling.
It's championship day
for the ladies at Wimbledon,
and coming up,
Serena Williams, Angie Kerber.
And it's not just a championship match.
It's a comeback. It's a moment.
I think at that point, it's like,
yeah, [bleep] it. Why not?
I just had a kid. Great.
Let's just blow everyone's mind
all over again.
[Mary Joe Fernández]
We make a lot of the fact
that she is a working mom right now,
but I think what makes this remarkable
is just the way that she has come back.
And as you said,
the multi-surgeries, the blood clots,
life-threatening situations
that she was in.
And she has an eight-month-old child,
and she is mentally,
physically, and emotionally
at the top of her game right now.
[umpire] Ready?
Play.
[Serena] Any time
I get to the finals of Wimbledon,
I feel like, okay,
I'm ready to keep going
and ready to keep winning
and, you know, just there
to try to do the best that I could.
[commentator] One-two punch
means Serena is on the board,
but still down.
[Serena] I was playing well,
but I didn't have endurance.
I had nothing in me. I was exhausted.
And you are going to be exhausted,
and I just, you know,
didn't understand that. [chuckles]
[commentator] No,
nothing really working right now.
I think she is obsessed with winning,
but more desire not to lose.
[commentator] Oh, it hit the dust,
not the chalk.
[commentator 2] It was out.
[commentator] And Serena has missed
again from on top of the net.
Angelique Kerber denies
the mother of all champions a milestone.
If anything, I just was more stressed
and maybe too
too stressed and too anxious, I think,
and a little too, um
too much energy
towards winning another Grand Slam.
[reporter] Serena continues her chase
to win that 24th major, as I stated,
which would match Margaret Court
on the all-time list.
The 36-year-old is also trying to win
her seventh U.S. Open title.
A year ago this time,
you were days away from becoming a mom.
What does it mean for you
to be back at the U.S. Open?
It's just it's a miracle really.
It's just been the best year of my life
and so many great memories.
It's mind-boggling.
I mean, I can't relate.
Because I honestly could not imagine
coming back after having my children,
especially in four months.
[commentator] We are so excited
to have you with us under the big top
on the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Huge roar for Serena Williams
when she first came on court.
I felt, like, okay, I'm close, I'm here.
I felt like I was playing
really, really, really well.
I was playing very aggressive.
[umpire] Game, set, match, Williams.
Two sets to love, 6-3, 6-0.
[commentator] All coming to see
the great Serena Williams
as she looks to tie the all-time mark
with a 24th Grand Slam title,
taking on Naomi Osaka,
who is just 20 years old
and hoping to become
the first Japanese player
to win a Grand Slam title.
What I knew about Osaka
was that Serena was her idol,
So she's playing against her idol
in, you know,
the biggest match in her career.
Very talented player.
You could see
how she modeled her game after Serena.
Very big serve.
[commentator] Very similar games
going head to head
in this U.S. Open final.
Once again, Serena found herself
in a really tough situation.
[linesman] Out!
[umpire] Game, Osaka.
[commentator] Wow, wow, wow.
[Serena] I didn't show up.
I guess I just couldn't show up.
I couldn't play.
I couldn't recover the way she could.
[Jill] Naomi outplayed her,
but, you know,
she allowed Naomi to outplay her.
Because she wasn't aggressive
and she wasn't moving well.
It felt like she was stuck to the court.
[umpire] 40-15.
[commentator] I've never seen anybody
keep Serena on her back feet
like Naomi has.
[umpire] Code violation, coaching.
Warning, Mrs. Williams.
[Jill] What was said was that Patrick
was giving her hand signals.
[Serena] One thing
I've never done is cheat.
If he gives me a thumbs up,
he's telling me to come on.
You don't have any code
and I know you don't know that
and I understand why
you may have thought that was coaching.
But I'm telling you it's not.
I don't cheat to win. I'd rather lose.
-I'm just letting you know.
-[crowd cheers]
She felt that she was accused
of things that she didn't do,
publicly in front of millions of people.
The umpire gave the warning,
so that gets marked as, you know,
it's a first offense.
[Mary Joe] So many coaches
coach during matches
and the umpire never says one thing.
[Alexis] She was not receiving
any message.
She wasn't looking for a message.
She wasn't receiving one.
Now, was Patrick gesturing his hands?
Looked like it.
[commentator] So in your view, Mary Joe,
is that out of line, the warning?
[Mary Joe] I think so.
There wasn't much there.
I remember being sideline,
and I remember thinking,
why didn't the umpire
give her a "soft warning,"
which happens in tennis,
where they kind of prepare you.
[umpire] Game, Osaka.
Code violation, racket abuse.
Point penalty, Mrs. Williams.
[commentator] Code violation.
You add that to the earlier
code violation she received,
that's a point penalty.
After she got the warning,
she gets the point penalty.
Then the emotions took over.
[dramatic music playing]
[commentator] Extremely rare
in a Grand Slam final.
So Osaka, after breaking back,
begins this game up 15-love.
[Mary Joe] And then she fought it,
and, you know, probably didn't handle it
as well as she could have.
You need to
You owe me an apology.
You owe me an apology.
I have never cheated in my life.
I have a daughter,
and I stand what's right for her,
and I've never cheated.
You owe me an apology.
I don't think anyone likes
being called a liar
or having their truth
called into question.
I was really wanting to defend who I was
and what I stood for.
[commentator]
Serena's played 18 U.S. Opens
and she may feel like
it happens every single year.
[Serena] Honestly, the U.S. Open
as a whole is very triggering for me.
[linesman] Out!
[commentator] That looked
like it was in.
-Oh, my goodness me.
-[commentator 2] This is horrible.
[commentator] That again is a vital,
vital point, and that is awful.
[reporter] The erroneous overrule
that some feel
cost Serena her quarter final match
against Jennifer Capriati.
[linesman] Fault.
-[commentator] Oh.
-[commentator 2] Wow.
-[commentator] No clear evidence.
-[commentator 3] There's no foot fault.
You definitely do not see
a foot fault there.
[commentator 2] Oh, and there's
there's a referee coming out.
Nobody really needs this.
I mean, this is such a critical stage,
and it's not good for either player.
Come on!
[commentator] When did she yell?
[commentator 2] She yelled
before the ball was mis-hit.
[commentator] That's not
They'll have to replay that point,
I'm almost certain.
She's giving her the point?
I'm not sure what she actually said.
[commentator 2] She just screamed out,
"Come on!"
[Jill] It was so much
post-traumatic stress
with all the other experiences,
and here was yet again another one.
[Serena] You stole a point from me.
You're a thief, too.
Code violation, verbal abuse.
Game penalty, Mrs. Williams.
[commentator] This is just extraordinary
because Naomi doesn't know
what's going on, nor does Serena,
and this is going to explode
explode in a moment
because Serena's just been given
a game penalty.
This is out excuse me.
I need the referee.
I don't agree with that.
[commentator]
Serena's asking for the referee.
Osaka was ready to serve at 4-3.
It was hard to hear over the crowd,
but Carlos Ramos said game penalty.
We said the third code violation
would lead to that.
[Mary Joe] Correct.
[Serena] I've never seen
anyone take a game off of someone
in the finals of anything major
for not even using profanity.
I've never seen that.
That's not right. This is not fair.
This has happened to me too many times.
This is not fair.
[Serena] Serena plays with emotion.
Serena is loud.
If I don't have that emotion,
I don't play well,
and I am not able to be Serena.
You know how many other men
you know how many other men
do things that are
I don't they do much worse than that.
[Jill] The tension was palpable.
It just felt like it was boiling.
[commentator]
Many, many people would say
restraint is called for
by the chair umpire there.
[Mary Joe] She called him a thief.
I'm not quite sure
that merits a warning.
It was another tough moment for Serena
on a big stage,
and you could just see how angry she was
about everything that went down.
[Serena] In that moment,
you just go numb.
[umpire] Game, set, and match,
Osaka, 6-2, 6-4.
[commentator] Naomi Osaka,
a quantum leap.
U.S. Open champion, instant star,
won the most controversial
U.S. Open final ever.
You cannot imagine how bad
she was feeling after that final.
Not only she lost, but also the way,
the scenario was horrible for her.
And I was responsible for what happened.
I made a mistake.
[announcer] Good evening, everyone,
and we welcome you
to the trophy celebration
of the United States Open.
[crowd boos]
[Serena] I feel
it sucked for her really.
That was her win
and she deserved that win
because she worked for it
and she held her nerve
and she played well.
And I didn't feel like it was fair
for that to have to be
her first Grand Slam win
under that experience.
Serena, not the result
that you wanted tonight.
How do you put into perspective
what this match contained?
Well, I don't wanna be rude,
but I don't wanna interrupt
I don't wanna do questions.
I just wanna tell you guys
she played well,
and this is her first Grand Slam.
[crowd cheers]
Congratulations, Naomi.
No more booing.
I just wanna say thank you
for watching the match.
Thank you.
[crowd cheers]
[Serena] I truly hated that for her.
I reached out to her several times
and her mother as well
because it was really heartbreaking
for her.
[Jill] She historically does not
and has not read things
and I don't know really
that she ever knew the level of
you know,
the level of yuck that there was.
It was very important for me
at that time,
but then I realized that, you know,
a lot of people throughout centuries
and throughout history
are often accused of things
that they never do.
And how do you respond to that?
And that's what I've learned
how to do better since that moment.
[reporter] The list of sporting events
postponed or canceled around the world
due to the threat of the coronavirus
is adding the BNP Paribas Open.
That's tennis,
and that's not happening this week
as originally scheduled.
A case of the virus was discovered
in the Coachella Valley
near Indian Wells, California,
where the top men and women
in the game were to begin
[reporter 2] Breaking news
here into First Take.
Wimbledon was canceled today
because of the coronavirus pandemic,
the first time since World War II
that the oldest
Grand Slam tennis tournament
will not be played.
-What test is this?
-It's coconut.
Oh, it's the COVID test? Coconut?
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
[Serena] Quite frankly,
it was nice to have a break.
I had time to spend with my kid.
We got a dog, big dog, Dora.
And I started working
on my papa pancakes.
We just spent a lot of time together
as a family.
And Serena would keep training,
but it was just a surreal time.
-[Serena laughs]
-Let's go.
[Alexis] I'm gonna get you.
We quarantined together.
We always every day, every week
I would be at Venus' house
and we would have a barbecue
every Sunday.
And we had our really small bubble,
and it was kind of nice for a change
to just not have to go.
-Thank you, Papa.
-[Alexis] You're very welcome, Olympia.
[Serena] I mean,
obviously we were still training,
but it was nice to just be on a break
and everybody be on a break.
Because usually if you're on a break,
then you're upset because, you know,
someone's passing you in the rankings.
And so it was this weird
kind of sigh of relief,
but yet this anxiousness
of waiting for the next
for the latest news
of what would happen next.
-[laughs]
-[Serena] Oh, my goodness.
I can't believe she did that.
Tell me, what did you do?
[Serena] And 2021 was like,
I gotta get serious.
I was just determined
to just go out and win
and do great things.
And we were working out really hard
and I was doing sprints,
and I tore my hamstring.
So then I went from being able to be
really excited
about the rest of the year
to trying to put it back together.
By the time I got to Wimbledon,
I started to feel good.
Like, I was able to, like,
get a lot more range of motion
in my hamstring and et cetera,
and I was really feeling it.
And I was, like, this is great.
[commentator] But it's still a long time
since she's played on grass,
and it's always a little dicey,
a little challenging here
on the first day.
I got to the grass
and I played really late that night.
The grass started to settle
and I slipped.
Oh!
[commentator] No, no, no, no.
[Serena] And I almost
tore it off the bone, my hamstring.
[reporter] For this to happen in
the first round was horrible to watch.
[reporter 2] It's heartbreaking.
And she's 39.
We don't know the full magnitude
yet of this injury,
with the next Grand Slam, the U.S. Open,
about two months away.
She was looking so good
going into that tournament,
and that [bleep] grass.
[Serena] I knew that that was gonna be
probably the end of my year,
even though I tried to train
for the U.S. Open.
But I decided ultimately
I wasn't gonna win the U.S. Open,
and I wasn't gonna play
if I wasn't gonna win.
[Alexis] That might have been
the first time
that she really talked about retirement.
And and look,
there's also this undeniable reality.
We had a four-year-old at that point
who is just adorable.
Bounce it. Good job.
Bounce it. Good job.
[Jill] I think that she had
an enormous amount of guilt
leaving Olympia to train and to play
because she felt like
she wasn't being a good mom.
In order to be the best,
you have to be supremely self-absorbed.
Have to be able to do that.
And now you have something that you love
more than anything in the world,
more than yourself.
I think it became harder to be selfish.
I think Serena was fortunate.
Obviously she had a lot of support
with her family and her husband.
But you still have to somehow
find it in you
to get that determination
and that desire
to work hard again.
[Serena] Well, how do you know?
How do you know when you're done?
Like, is there a sign?
Is there a way that you feel?
[Alexis] She's looking at her body
and the toll that it's taking playing,
and there's nothing
you can do about that.
You can always train a little better
But, you know, time is time.
Father Time doesn't wait for anybody.
And I think there was
also some part of her,
I know there's some part of her
that was, like,
baby number two, let's go.
It comes down to a decision
that she has to make,
and my job is to be as supportive
as I can be for whatever it is.
2022, she doesn't practice.
I mean, for someone
who is waking up every morning
and practices since she's probably
four years old every single day,
she doesn't practice.
I just remember telling him
I just don't know.
I mean, I wanna train, yeah,
but I just don't know.
I just felt like
I'd given so much to tennis,
and tennis honestly
has given so much to me.
But it just feels like
you're just beaten down
and you're exhausted, mentally,
more than anything.
I tell her, "Listen, if you wanna play,
I'm with you 100%.
"But if you don't play,
I wanna coach someone else.
"If Monday you're not at practice,
I consider that you retire."
And she looks at me in the eyes
and she says,
"On Monday,
I'm not gonna be at practice."
I said, "Okay, fine.
"So I'm free."
[Serena] It's, like, man, you know,
you wanna do something so bad,
but every time you try to do it,
you take a step back.
So it was really
a very difficult decision to make.
But I also think at that moment
you need a coach
that tells you,
like, you should continue.
This is how you should end your career.
And in fact for me,
that was Jill that did that to me.
And, yeah, she wasn't my coach,
but she was someone
that was a really good friend
in that moment.
She's, like,
"I'm not playing, I'm done."
She hadn't played
in probably eight, nine months.
What I said to her was,
"Your last match can't be that match."
You've done too much, you are too much.
You deserve to be celebrated.
[Serena] That's what I needed to hear.
I need to hear, like,
"Let's not end your career
"walking off the court
at Wimbledon crying.
"Let's get up
and let's end it on a high note."
And that's ultimately what she told me.
I wanted to end it different,
and so be it,
it would have to be in New York.
[reporter] Serena Williams,
the greatest player
in the history of women's tennis,
announced in Vogue,
in fabulous fashion, I might add,
that she will soon call it a career.
She posted this
on Instagram this morning, saying,
"There comes a time in life
"when we have to decide
to move in a different direction.
"That time is always hard
when you love something so much.
"My goodness, do I enjoy tennis,
but now the countdown has begun."
I'm writing this article,
and, you know, at some point,
I'm, like, deleting and typing
and crying and remembering
and reminiscing.
And for me, I just felt like,
I'm not retiring.
That sounds so final
and so, like, a death sentence.
I'm moving on.
I'm doing something different.
There's so many things I wanted to do
and want to be,
and tennis, unfortunately,
is stopping me from doing a lot of that,
namely being a mom again.
[dramatic music playing]
Before we arrive at the Open,
I'm just realistic.
I'm thinking I wanna have
a good end to my career,
and I want to be able
to say goodbye in my way.
I mean, it was where
I won my first Grand Slam,
but there's also, like,
this other, like, nasty, ugly side
to what I've personally,
and I can confirm what I have only
no one else experienced any of that.
[reporter] It's day one
of the U.S. Open,
and Serena Williams
is set to take the court soon.
This tournament is expected
to be the last and final one
of Williams' career.
[Serena] This was the final hurrah.
It felt like it was just gonna be
a sad moment no matter how it ended.
I wasn't gonna be happy.
[Mary Joe] We are all so grateful
that she has given us this chance
to see her again.
I mean, regardless of how she plays,
regardless if she wins or she loses,
it doesn't matter.
We're gonna be able to appreciate her
and celebrate her greatness
that she's given us for 25 years.
[Alexis] Serena post Olympia,
those crowds,
especially in the U.S. Open,
really started to pull for her.
[crowd cheers]
Because I think they finally saw
yet another dimension to this superhero
that was fallible, that was human.
I'm not sad, I'm happy.
[Alexis] That was a mom.
I felt proud to play as a mom,
because my whole career,
I've been playing just as this person,
a single human being.
And now I'm playing as a mom,
and it just definitely
made a difference to me.
I was so happy
that I was able to go out there
and play for people
that supported me for so many years.
[umpire] Game, Serena Williams.
[Serena] It became
not necessarily about winning.
It became more or less about, like
I don't know.
In a weird way of, like, thank you.
[Jill] What I always struggled with
was Serena not getting the respect,
love, and admiration
for everything
that she's given of herself
to the world, to culture, to sport.
And so when I sat there
and listened to people
showering her with love
[crowd cheers]
And I was just hoping
that she could feel that.
There was something about that
that really solidified for me
what she represents
and how it surpassed the sport.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] The legend lives on.
In the history of our game,
there is only one,
and probably
there will never be another one.
I could feel everything, and I loved it.
And usually those moments
I don't really love.
For someone that's had
so many bad experiences in New York,
this ended up being the best experience
of my life ever in tennis.
[crowd cheers]
[Alexis] If you could bottle up
that energy in that arena and sell it,
you would be a multi-billionaire.
I've never been a part of something
that felt like that.
And she didn't even win the damn thing.
[umpire] Game, set, match, Tomljanovic.
[Alexis] And yet it had
this quality to it
that was so obviously special
and almost otherworldly.
I mean, it gives me chills
just thinking about it.
[Serena] It was the best tournament
I've ever played.
I still felt like I won.
I was able to really give my fans
an opportunity to say goodbye,
and I was able to say goodbye
to my fans as well,
which you don't really think about
until you're in that moment.
But I felt like it was
the best thing that I could have done.
[crowd cheers]
Um oh, my God. Thank you so much.
You guys were amazing today.
I tried, but Ajla just played
a little bit better.
Thank you, Daddy.
I know you're watching.
[voice breaking] Thanks, Mom.
Oh, my God. Um
[crowd cheers]
Oh, my God.
These are happy tears, I guess.
I don't know.
And I wouldn't be
I wouldn't be Serena
if there wasn't Venus,
so thank you, Venus.
[crowd cheers]
She's the only reason
that Serena Williams ever existed,
so, um, I don't know.
I just everyone from Jill to Isha
to my sister Lyn
to my husband, to Olympia, to Jemira,
everyone in that box,
it's been a fun ride, and, um
[crowd cheers]
[interviewer] Well, on behalf
of the whole tennis community,
we thank you
for letting us be part of this journey
and watching greatness
for the last 25 years.
It's been remarkable.
It's a long time.
[crowd cheers]
[Serena] It was the ultimate sendoff,
and I didn't expect that, you know.
And to not almost have that
would have been really sad.
And so I'm so grateful to, like,
everyone that supported me
all those years.
And even on the court,
like, I was crying or whatever,
but I remember
when Andre Agassi retired,
there wasn't a dry eye
in the locker room, you know.
And I was, like,
"Oh, this is so sad, you know."
Like I never thought
I would have that moment.
I always thought it would be
too hard for me to say goodbye,
but sometimes doing the hard thing
is the best thing,
and that's what it was.
It was definitely the best thing.
[interviewer] So Mr. Williams,
I'll ask you a few questions.
So, you know, I've sat with Serena now,
what, ten times, Serena?
We have studied your daughter's career.
She has 73 singles titles.
She spent 319 weeks
ranked number one in the world.
Four gold medals,
33 singles Grand Slam appearances
and 23 victories.
When I say all of that to you,
what does it make you feel?
Well, it's amazing.
But today when I look at Serena,
it's just phenomenal.
Matter of fact,
when I think about what Serena has done,
I couldn't have never thought that
she could do as much as she could do.
She's done so very well for herself
and her family, and on, and on.
You know what Grandpa taught me?
So first thing you do is turn.
This hand here,
don't bring it down too soon.
And I'm so proud of Serena
being a great, unbelievable champion.
[interviewer] Thank you for doing this.
It's a real privilege,
and I sure appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
-[Serena] Can you take a picture?
-[interviewer] Of course.
[chuckles]
[Serena] I began
in this two-bedroom house
in Compton, California,
dreaming of getting to a Grand Slam.
This is you at the U.S. Open.
And then finally getting one chance
and, you know, taking that chance.
And, essentially, never looking back.
[commentator] An expression
of omnipotence by Serena Williams.
[Serena] This was all
just the ultimate blessing
that I was able to play
and then I was able to win
and then I was able to be the best.
Like, that just doesn't happen
in anyone's life,
and somehow it happened in mine.
I think the best way to describe it
is I was, like,
on the greatest ride of my life.
At some point, you have to get off,
even though you don't want to.
And I had to get off
because I wanted to have more kids.
-You're gonna be a big sister.
-[squeals] Yes!
[both laugh]
-[Olympia] Good.
-Say what?
-I love that!
-[both laugh]
[interviewer] Would you want
your girls to play tennis?
Actually, I would. I actually
would want them to play tennis,
because I don't think
there's a better sport for women.
So we'll see. I don't know. We'll see.
Olympia's really good at it,
but she don't really love it.
[laughs]
But we'll see what happens.
[announcer] She's a phenomenon,
an icon, a legend.
Ladies and gentlemen, Serena Williams.
[crowd cheers]
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
[Serena Williams] Serena,
the game is mental.
Good thoughts are powerful.
Negative thoughts are weak.
[Richard Williams] This is you
at the U.S. Open.
[Serena speaking]
Your vision will become your life.
[laughter]
Hold on to the thought of what you want.
Make it absolutely clear in your mind.
[Serena speaking]
You attract what you think about most.
That's how you create a champion.
[dramatic music playing]
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
now champion,
the legendary Serena Williams.
[crowd cheers]
[Alexis Ohanian]
We both knew the stakes.
We both knew the history she was making.
She was already making history
breaking Steffi's record
and setting the record of Grand Slams,
but do it while pregnant, whew.
Right.
But it wasn't a conversation, frankly,
until she won.
There was a little gathering afterwards,
and then we went upstairs.
Like, it was the most
non-debaucherous celebration
you can imagine.
And I think it was
that grounding, though,
that was setting us up
for the next chapter.
[reporter] A representative of hers
has confirmed she is pregnant.
Serena is expecting a baby this fall.
Being pregnant.
Winning a Grand Slam title.
Now, I've never done either,
but I hear both can be challenging.
Well, apparently Serena Williams
did them both
at the same time earlier this year.
That's right.
She was about eight weeks pregnant
when she won the Australian Open.
[Serena] I remember growing up,
and I always
wanted to be a tennis player,
but I've always wanted to be a mom,
and I always knew I was gonna be a mom,
and that's something
that I've always wanted.
Since I was a little kid,
I always imagined myself as a father.
It felt as natural as anything else.
I was just coming to terms
thinking of myself as a husband.
And then all of a sudden,
turning around and being, like,
"Oh, great. Okay. Now I'm gonna
think about myself as a dad."
It's a Friday night.
I'm in Publix going shopping
because my fiancé has cravings.
I was told there would be cravings.
I was not told they would be these.
Zucchini, asparagus, and
What's this one called again?
When I was pregnant,
I felt like I was losing everything
that I thought Serena was.
[reporter] Tennis legend
and entrepreneur Serena Williams
says that adding "mom" to her résumé
won't slow her down.
[Serena] Ending my career in 2017
was never going to happen.
I wasn't done. It wasn't me.
[reporter] Serena's rep says
she'll definitely
not return to tennis in 2017,
but look for her to be back in 2018.
[Serena] Your body starts to change
in that last four months,
and you put your body through so much.
I felt you kick yesterday.
It was amazing.
[Serena] It's all fresh and it's all new
and it's all really scary.
You don't really know what to expect.
Even though
you can read a zillion books,
it can't prepare you
for what is about to happen.
[mildly tense music playing]
They wanted me to have the baby
August 20-something or 30th,
and I wanted a September baby
because I'm born in September,
and I wanted my daughter
to be born in September.
So I held it. I was, like, no, no, no.
I'm, like, one of the only people
that are, like, no.
I'll keep her longer.
[Alexis] What did you say
when someone said that our little girl
was gonna win Wimbledon
in, like, 15-20 years?
[Serena] Not if I'm still on tour.
[laughter]
[Serena] August 31st, they said
if you don't go into labor naturally,
we're gonna induce you to go into labor.
So they induced me on August 31.
Every time I had a contraction,
Olympia's heart rate
would go down really far.
There's this almost palpable anxiety
I guess with any
first time parent for sure.
And then you layer on
Serena's pre-existing health conditions,
and then it's, like,
hey, the show's about to begin.
And now, all right,
actually she's not doing great.
Eventually they said
we need to have a C-section,
because we gotta get the baby out.
Serena's, like, "Cool. All right.
Whatever you need. No problem."
[indistinct chatter]
[Alexis] But you got your scrubs on.
You're waiting, they bring you in.
They sit you next to her
on the other side of the sheet.
No way I'm looking over
that other side of the sheet.
[doctor] Take some deep breaths, okay?
[Alexis] Take deep breaths, baby.
You did such a great job.
The doctor's working down there,
moving things around.
Okay, baby pops out. Okay.
[doctor] Here she comes!
Look, she's screaming already.
[Alexis] Oh, there's the baby.
Look at that happy baby.
[laughing] Look at that happy baby.
She put her little victory pose up
when we first saw her. Had her hands up.
That's my baby girl. Let's go, Olympia.
She's got Dad's complexion,
but she's your baby.
[woman] Here, Mama.
[Serena] Aw, you're so cute.
[nurse] I'll help. I'll readjust.
What we're gonna do,
I'm gonna have you help me.
[Serena] I got to hold her,
and then, you know,
I was getting to know her,
so it was a different feeling for me.
And obviously I loved her,
but it was more of, like, a protection.
[Alexis] How you feeling, Mama?
I'm feeling good.
You did it. We did it.
You feel your ego just melt.
For the first time ever,
you're, like, I am not
the center of the universe.
Like, this little human
is the most important person
I have ever met,
and I will do anything for this person.
We came in as two.
We're going out as three.
Everything was fine
until the second day of the C-section.
I remember
Alexis' stepmother and his dad
were in one of the rooms
and they were talking to me,
and I just remember thinking
I can't breathe.
And so I took some steps back
and I was, like,
I just gotta get out of this room
because they were just talking,
and I couldn't hear
anything they were saying.
I was just thinking,
man, I'm really struggling to breathe,
so I really need to, like,
figure this out.
Serena's coughing,
she's not feeling great.
And this was around the time
when she realizes,
like, something's just not right.
[Serena] So I somehow
went back to my room
and I tell the nurse,
"Listen, I need to get a CAT scan
with dye in it
"so you guys can see everything
that's going on in my lungs,
"and then I need to get on
a heparin drip."
And so I'm literally
prescribing my order.
The nurses aren't quite listening,
the doctors aren't quite listening,
and I'm trying to advocate for her.
In that moment, I'm, like,
"Something does not feel right, people.
"Like, I hear what you're saying,
but I know what my wife is saying."
I'm still trying to be
respectful of the people here.
I know these are stressful jobs.
There's a part of me that's, like,
"Don't be that [bleep],"
but there's another
louder part of me that's, like,
"These people are not listening
to my damn wife,"
and at some point,
you have to be the [bleep] to advocate.
[Serena] So my doctor came in,
and I think she thought
I was delusional.
But it didn't matter, you know.
She totally listened to me
and she ended up doing what I asked for.
Because I've had to advocate
for myself so much in sport,
it was really important
that I didn't accept no as an answer.
I think it's important
for people to understand that
and know that, statistically,
African-American women
are often left to die.
You know, in many ways,
Serena's experience
is unfortunately
the embodiment of the challenge.
Because it's devastating to understand
that we already go through so much,
and to have to have your child
be without a mom
because of not listening
or because, you know, a lot of schools
are teaching their doctors
that Black women are dramatic
and they can take more pain.
And that's absurd.
Things seemed like they had stabilized,
and I went out to go get food
with my parents.
So we leave the room,
and the next thing, I swear,
a minute later I get a call from Jill.
"Hey, they gotta pull Serena in
for surgery."
Bah-bah-bah, something,
stitches, the clotting's not happening.
I was most concerned with her health.
That's the first thing
that came to my mind.
And just that everything would be okay.
You know, you have a newborn life,
and she can't even enjoy that
because she was so sick.
This was the longest, longest,
longest week, you know.
Multiple surgeries.
This should have been
the happiest time for her,
and she doesn't remember any of it
because she was medicated
or going through surgeries
or what have you.
[dramatic music playing]
[Serena] So we're leaving the hospital
after six-seven nights?
-Six nights?
-[Alexis] Yeah.
[Serena] It's been a long time.
But we had a lot of complications,
but look who we got.
We got a baby girl.
I was so obsessed with my daughter,
I never left her ever for 24 hours.
Tried to do my best
to create an environment at the house
where Serena could recover, could rest.
I was very stubborn,
so we didn't have a baby nurse
or a nanny, so it was just me.
[vocalizing]
Where's your belly?
Changing that first diaper,
I was, like, "Wow, I can do this.
"Okay. I got this."
It gave me a confidence to be a dad
that I have to this day,
and nothing's gonna faze me now
because we got through that.
[Serena] When I get home, you know,
I'm basically a zombie.
It was all a blur.
Like, I couldn't really
function very well.
And walking out to the mailbox was
that was my exercise.
And I would come back in,
and I would be so exhausted after that
that I would sleep
for the rest of the day.
That first walk,
she barely made it down the driveway.
And she's, like, I gotta turn around.
And she's bracing on me.
And I'm, like, "Come on.
We can go to the end of the street."
She's, like, "No, I really can't."
I'm, like, "[bleep] Okay."
I just had really small goals,
but I knew that I wanted to keep moving
and try to keep myself
as healthy as I could in those moments.
There was a bush.
I remember there was a bush
on the street that was her goal bush.
And every day go out a little further.
Some days she'd sneak out without me
and I'd get a little mad at her
and be, "Why you gonna go without me?
"What if you fall?
What if something happens?
"Like, you gotta let me know."
When she finally made it to that bush,
it was a big deal.
[Serena] At the same time,
I'm also dealing with
the big question of tennis.
Am I gonna play tennis again?
When I had Olympia,
I definitely always had tennis
on my mind.
And so she said,
"Look, these are the tournaments
I wanna play for.
"This is my strategy. This is my plan.
"Do you think we can make this work?"
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter] The last time we saw
Serena Williams on the court,
she won her 23rd Grand Slam title
at last year's Australian Open.
Here's what she told
the Vogue magazine folks.
"It's not a secret
that I have my sights on 25,"
and that means she wants to have
25 Grand Slam victories,
which would break the all-time record.
[Serena] Olympia,
you sure you wanna work out still?
[woman] Olympia, look. Look, Mama.
Whoo!
[Alexis] So I'm, like,
"Look, my job here
"is to support you
and what you think is best.
"I'm gonna tell you
I think you're coming back too early
"and you don't need to rush
any of this."
And of course, she's gonna say,
"I know my body better than anyone
and I think it's gonna be great."
And I'm just gonna say,
"All right. I've given you my feedback.
"You have dismissed it. That's fine.
"Let's figure out a plan
to make this work."
[announcer] Here is Serena Williams!
[crowd cheers]
[Alexis] She wouldn't talk about 24.
It was always about just coming back
to the sport that she loved
and that she knew
she was objectively great at,
and that's a hard drug to quit.
It's like a magnet, right?
When you love something,
you always just kind of
are drawn back to it,
especially when it's tennis season,
which is all the time.
[reporter] Serena's daughter was born
earlier this year on September 1st.
Then in November,
she married Alexis Ohanian
in a fairytale wedding in New Orleans.
[Jill] The baby was born September 1st.
Got a big offer for her to play
an exhibition in Abu Dhabi,
which she said yes to.
And I was, like, that's crazy.
You're four months,
you're breastfeeding. Like, what?
We went.
She was pumping five minutes
before she had to go on the court.
[Serena] And I would recommend
not necessarily breastfeeding
and playing a solo sport.
[laughs]
I feel like when I came back,
winning became inspiration
as opposed to Grand Slams.
And I became now
a completely different inspiration,
not just for tennis,
but just for so many women.
[Jill] Little by little,
she was playing herself back into shape.
There was a part of me that felt like
she needed to get back
as fast as she did
because she needed to prove to herself
that she could do it.
[reporter] We're in
for something special, I have a feeling.
It's championship day
for the ladies at Wimbledon,
and coming up,
Serena Williams, Angie Kerber.
And it's not just a championship match.
It's a comeback. It's a moment.
I think at that point, it's like,
yeah, [bleep] it. Why not?
I just had a kid. Great.
Let's just blow everyone's mind
all over again.
[Mary Joe Fernández]
We make a lot of the fact
that she is a working mom right now,
but I think what makes this remarkable
is just the way that she has come back.
And as you said,
the multi-surgeries, the blood clots,
life-threatening situations
that she was in.
And she has an eight-month-old child,
and she is mentally,
physically, and emotionally
at the top of her game right now.
[umpire] Ready?
Play.
[Serena] Any time
I get to the finals of Wimbledon,
I feel like, okay,
I'm ready to keep going
and ready to keep winning
and, you know, just there
to try to do the best that I could.
[commentator] One-two punch
means Serena is on the board,
but still down.
[Serena] I was playing well,
but I didn't have endurance.
I had nothing in me. I was exhausted.
And you are going to be exhausted,
and I just, you know,
didn't understand that. [chuckles]
[commentator] No,
nothing really working right now.
I think she is obsessed with winning,
but more desire not to lose.
[commentator] Oh, it hit the dust,
not the chalk.
[commentator 2] It was out.
[commentator] And Serena has missed
again from on top of the net.
Angelique Kerber denies
the mother of all champions a milestone.
If anything, I just was more stressed
and maybe too
too stressed and too anxious, I think,
and a little too, um
too much energy
towards winning another Grand Slam.
[reporter] Serena continues her chase
to win that 24th major, as I stated,
which would match Margaret Court
on the all-time list.
The 36-year-old is also trying to win
her seventh U.S. Open title.
A year ago this time,
you were days away from becoming a mom.
What does it mean for you
to be back at the U.S. Open?
It's just it's a miracle really.
It's just been the best year of my life
and so many great memories.
It's mind-boggling.
I mean, I can't relate.
Because I honestly could not imagine
coming back after having my children,
especially in four months.
[commentator] We are so excited
to have you with us under the big top
on the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Huge roar for Serena Williams
when she first came on court.
I felt, like, okay, I'm close, I'm here.
I felt like I was playing
really, really, really well.
I was playing very aggressive.
[umpire] Game, set, match, Williams.
Two sets to love, 6-3, 6-0.
[commentator] All coming to see
the great Serena Williams
as she looks to tie the all-time mark
with a 24th Grand Slam title,
taking on Naomi Osaka,
who is just 20 years old
and hoping to become
the first Japanese player
to win a Grand Slam title.
What I knew about Osaka
was that Serena was her idol,
So she's playing against her idol
in, you know,
the biggest match in her career.
Very talented player.
You could see
how she modeled her game after Serena.
Very big serve.
[commentator] Very similar games
going head to head
in this U.S. Open final.
Once again, Serena found herself
in a really tough situation.
[linesman] Out!
[umpire] Game, Osaka.
[commentator] Wow, wow, wow.
[Serena] I didn't show up.
I guess I just couldn't show up.
I couldn't play.
I couldn't recover the way she could.
[Jill] Naomi outplayed her,
but, you know,
she allowed Naomi to outplay her.
Because she wasn't aggressive
and she wasn't moving well.
It felt like she was stuck to the court.
[umpire] 40-15.
[commentator] I've never seen anybody
keep Serena on her back feet
like Naomi has.
[umpire] Code violation, coaching.
Warning, Mrs. Williams.
[Jill] What was said was that Patrick
was giving her hand signals.
[Serena] One thing
I've never done is cheat.
If he gives me a thumbs up,
he's telling me to come on.
You don't have any code
and I know you don't know that
and I understand why
you may have thought that was coaching.
But I'm telling you it's not.
I don't cheat to win. I'd rather lose.
-I'm just letting you know.
-[crowd cheers]
She felt that she was accused
of things that she didn't do,
publicly in front of millions of people.
The umpire gave the warning,
so that gets marked as, you know,
it's a first offense.
[Mary Joe] So many coaches
coach during matches
and the umpire never says one thing.
[Alexis] She was not receiving
any message.
She wasn't looking for a message.
She wasn't receiving one.
Now, was Patrick gesturing his hands?
Looked like it.
[commentator] So in your view, Mary Joe,
is that out of line, the warning?
[Mary Joe] I think so.
There wasn't much there.
I remember being sideline,
and I remember thinking,
why didn't the umpire
give her a "soft warning,"
which happens in tennis,
where they kind of prepare you.
[umpire] Game, Osaka.
Code violation, racket abuse.
Point penalty, Mrs. Williams.
[commentator] Code violation.
You add that to the earlier
code violation she received,
that's a point penalty.
After she got the warning,
she gets the point penalty.
Then the emotions took over.
[dramatic music playing]
[commentator] Extremely rare
in a Grand Slam final.
So Osaka, after breaking back,
begins this game up 15-love.
[Mary Joe] And then she fought it,
and, you know, probably didn't handle it
as well as she could have.
You need to
You owe me an apology.
You owe me an apology.
I have never cheated in my life.
I have a daughter,
and I stand what's right for her,
and I've never cheated.
You owe me an apology.
I don't think anyone likes
being called a liar
or having their truth
called into question.
I was really wanting to defend who I was
and what I stood for.
[commentator]
Serena's played 18 U.S. Opens
and she may feel like
it happens every single year.
[Serena] Honestly, the U.S. Open
as a whole is very triggering for me.
[linesman] Out!
[commentator] That looked
like it was in.
-Oh, my goodness me.
-[commentator 2] This is horrible.
[commentator] That again is a vital,
vital point, and that is awful.
[reporter] The erroneous overrule
that some feel
cost Serena her quarter final match
against Jennifer Capriati.
[linesman] Fault.
-[commentator] Oh.
-[commentator 2] Wow.
-[commentator] No clear evidence.
-[commentator 3] There's no foot fault.
You definitely do not see
a foot fault there.
[commentator 2] Oh, and there's
there's a referee coming out.
Nobody really needs this.
I mean, this is such a critical stage,
and it's not good for either player.
Come on!
[commentator] When did she yell?
[commentator 2] She yelled
before the ball was mis-hit.
[commentator] That's not
They'll have to replay that point,
I'm almost certain.
She's giving her the point?
I'm not sure what she actually said.
[commentator 2] She just screamed out,
"Come on!"
[Jill] It was so much
post-traumatic stress
with all the other experiences,
and here was yet again another one.
[Serena] You stole a point from me.
You're a thief, too.
Code violation, verbal abuse.
Game penalty, Mrs. Williams.
[commentator] This is just extraordinary
because Naomi doesn't know
what's going on, nor does Serena,
and this is going to explode
explode in a moment
because Serena's just been given
a game penalty.
This is out excuse me.
I need the referee.
I don't agree with that.
[commentator]
Serena's asking for the referee.
Osaka was ready to serve at 4-3.
It was hard to hear over the crowd,
but Carlos Ramos said game penalty.
We said the third code violation
would lead to that.
[Mary Joe] Correct.
[Serena] I've never seen
anyone take a game off of someone
in the finals of anything major
for not even using profanity.
I've never seen that.
That's not right. This is not fair.
This has happened to me too many times.
This is not fair.
[Serena] Serena plays with emotion.
Serena is loud.
If I don't have that emotion,
I don't play well,
and I am not able to be Serena.
You know how many other men
you know how many other men
do things that are
I don't they do much worse than that.
[Jill] The tension was palpable.
It just felt like it was boiling.
[commentator]
Many, many people would say
restraint is called for
by the chair umpire there.
[Mary Joe] She called him a thief.
I'm not quite sure
that merits a warning.
It was another tough moment for Serena
on a big stage,
and you could just see how angry she was
about everything that went down.
[Serena] In that moment,
you just go numb.
[umpire] Game, set, and match,
Osaka, 6-2, 6-4.
[commentator] Naomi Osaka,
a quantum leap.
U.S. Open champion, instant star,
won the most controversial
U.S. Open final ever.
You cannot imagine how bad
she was feeling after that final.
Not only she lost, but also the way,
the scenario was horrible for her.
And I was responsible for what happened.
I made a mistake.
[announcer] Good evening, everyone,
and we welcome you
to the trophy celebration
of the United States Open.
[crowd boos]
[Serena] I feel
it sucked for her really.
That was her win
and she deserved that win
because she worked for it
and she held her nerve
and she played well.
And I didn't feel like it was fair
for that to have to be
her first Grand Slam win
under that experience.
Serena, not the result
that you wanted tonight.
How do you put into perspective
what this match contained?
Well, I don't wanna be rude,
but I don't wanna interrupt
I don't wanna do questions.
I just wanna tell you guys
she played well,
and this is her first Grand Slam.
[crowd cheers]
Congratulations, Naomi.
No more booing.
I just wanna say thank you
for watching the match.
Thank you.
[crowd cheers]
[Serena] I truly hated that for her.
I reached out to her several times
and her mother as well
because it was really heartbreaking
for her.
[Jill] She historically does not
and has not read things
and I don't know really
that she ever knew the level of
you know,
the level of yuck that there was.
It was very important for me
at that time,
but then I realized that, you know,
a lot of people throughout centuries
and throughout history
are often accused of things
that they never do.
And how do you respond to that?
And that's what I've learned
how to do better since that moment.
[reporter] The list of sporting events
postponed or canceled around the world
due to the threat of the coronavirus
is adding the BNP Paribas Open.
That's tennis,
and that's not happening this week
as originally scheduled.
A case of the virus was discovered
in the Coachella Valley
near Indian Wells, California,
where the top men and women
in the game were to begin
[reporter 2] Breaking news
here into First Take.
Wimbledon was canceled today
because of the coronavirus pandemic,
the first time since World War II
that the oldest
Grand Slam tennis tournament
will not be played.
-What test is this?
-It's coconut.
Oh, it's the COVID test? Coconut?
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
[Serena] Quite frankly,
it was nice to have a break.
I had time to spend with my kid.
We got a dog, big dog, Dora.
And I started working
on my papa pancakes.
We just spent a lot of time together
as a family.
And Serena would keep training,
but it was just a surreal time.
-[Serena laughs]
-Let's go.
[Alexis] I'm gonna get you.
We quarantined together.
We always every day, every week
I would be at Venus' house
and we would have a barbecue
every Sunday.
And we had our really small bubble,
and it was kind of nice for a change
to just not have to go.
-Thank you, Papa.
-[Alexis] You're very welcome, Olympia.
[Serena] I mean,
obviously we were still training,
but it was nice to just be on a break
and everybody be on a break.
Because usually if you're on a break,
then you're upset because, you know,
someone's passing you in the rankings.
And so it was this weird
kind of sigh of relief,
but yet this anxiousness
of waiting for the next
for the latest news
of what would happen next.
-[laughs]
-[Serena] Oh, my goodness.
I can't believe she did that.
Tell me, what did you do?
[Serena] And 2021 was like,
I gotta get serious.
I was just determined
to just go out and win
and do great things.
And we were working out really hard
and I was doing sprints,
and I tore my hamstring.
So then I went from being able to be
really excited
about the rest of the year
to trying to put it back together.
By the time I got to Wimbledon,
I started to feel good.
Like, I was able to, like,
get a lot more range of motion
in my hamstring and et cetera,
and I was really feeling it.
And I was, like, this is great.
[commentator] But it's still a long time
since she's played on grass,
and it's always a little dicey,
a little challenging here
on the first day.
I got to the grass
and I played really late that night.
The grass started to settle
and I slipped.
Oh!
[commentator] No, no, no, no.
[Serena] And I almost
tore it off the bone, my hamstring.
[reporter] For this to happen in
the first round was horrible to watch.
[reporter 2] It's heartbreaking.
And she's 39.
We don't know the full magnitude
yet of this injury,
with the next Grand Slam, the U.S. Open,
about two months away.
She was looking so good
going into that tournament,
and that [bleep] grass.
[Serena] I knew that that was gonna be
probably the end of my year,
even though I tried to train
for the U.S. Open.
But I decided ultimately
I wasn't gonna win the U.S. Open,
and I wasn't gonna play
if I wasn't gonna win.
[Alexis] That might have been
the first time
that she really talked about retirement.
And and look,
there's also this undeniable reality.
We had a four-year-old at that point
who is just adorable.
Bounce it. Good job.
Bounce it. Good job.
[Jill] I think that she had
an enormous amount of guilt
leaving Olympia to train and to play
because she felt like
she wasn't being a good mom.
In order to be the best,
you have to be supremely self-absorbed.
Have to be able to do that.
And now you have something that you love
more than anything in the world,
more than yourself.
I think it became harder to be selfish.
I think Serena was fortunate.
Obviously she had a lot of support
with her family and her husband.
But you still have to somehow
find it in you
to get that determination
and that desire
to work hard again.
[Serena] Well, how do you know?
How do you know when you're done?
Like, is there a sign?
Is there a way that you feel?
[Alexis] She's looking at her body
and the toll that it's taking playing,
and there's nothing
you can do about that.
You can always train a little better
But, you know, time is time.
Father Time doesn't wait for anybody.
And I think there was
also some part of her,
I know there's some part of her
that was, like,
baby number two, let's go.
It comes down to a decision
that she has to make,
and my job is to be as supportive
as I can be for whatever it is.
2022, she doesn't practice.
I mean, for someone
who is waking up every morning
and practices since she's probably
four years old every single day,
she doesn't practice.
I just remember telling him
I just don't know.
I mean, I wanna train, yeah,
but I just don't know.
I just felt like
I'd given so much to tennis,
and tennis honestly
has given so much to me.
But it just feels like
you're just beaten down
and you're exhausted, mentally,
more than anything.
I tell her, "Listen, if you wanna play,
I'm with you 100%.
"But if you don't play,
I wanna coach someone else.
"If Monday you're not at practice,
I consider that you retire."
And she looks at me in the eyes
and she says,
"On Monday,
I'm not gonna be at practice."
I said, "Okay, fine.
"So I'm free."
[Serena] It's, like, man, you know,
you wanna do something so bad,
but every time you try to do it,
you take a step back.
So it was really
a very difficult decision to make.
But I also think at that moment
you need a coach
that tells you,
like, you should continue.
This is how you should end your career.
And in fact for me,
that was Jill that did that to me.
And, yeah, she wasn't my coach,
but she was someone
that was a really good friend
in that moment.
She's, like,
"I'm not playing, I'm done."
She hadn't played
in probably eight, nine months.
What I said to her was,
"Your last match can't be that match."
You've done too much, you are too much.
You deserve to be celebrated.
[Serena] That's what I needed to hear.
I need to hear, like,
"Let's not end your career
"walking off the court
at Wimbledon crying.
"Let's get up
and let's end it on a high note."
And that's ultimately what she told me.
I wanted to end it different,
and so be it,
it would have to be in New York.
[reporter] Serena Williams,
the greatest player
in the history of women's tennis,
announced in Vogue,
in fabulous fashion, I might add,
that she will soon call it a career.
She posted this
on Instagram this morning, saying,
"There comes a time in life
"when we have to decide
to move in a different direction.
"That time is always hard
when you love something so much.
"My goodness, do I enjoy tennis,
but now the countdown has begun."
I'm writing this article,
and, you know, at some point,
I'm, like, deleting and typing
and crying and remembering
and reminiscing.
And for me, I just felt like,
I'm not retiring.
That sounds so final
and so, like, a death sentence.
I'm moving on.
I'm doing something different.
There's so many things I wanted to do
and want to be,
and tennis, unfortunately,
is stopping me from doing a lot of that,
namely being a mom again.
[dramatic music playing]
Before we arrive at the Open,
I'm just realistic.
I'm thinking I wanna have
a good end to my career,
and I want to be able
to say goodbye in my way.
I mean, it was where
I won my first Grand Slam,
but there's also, like,
this other, like, nasty, ugly side
to what I've personally,
and I can confirm what I have only
no one else experienced any of that.
[reporter] It's day one
of the U.S. Open,
and Serena Williams
is set to take the court soon.
This tournament is expected
to be the last and final one
of Williams' career.
[Serena] This was the final hurrah.
It felt like it was just gonna be
a sad moment no matter how it ended.
I wasn't gonna be happy.
[Mary Joe] We are all so grateful
that she has given us this chance
to see her again.
I mean, regardless of how she plays,
regardless if she wins or she loses,
it doesn't matter.
We're gonna be able to appreciate her
and celebrate her greatness
that she's given us for 25 years.
[Alexis] Serena post Olympia,
those crowds,
especially in the U.S. Open,
really started to pull for her.
[crowd cheers]
Because I think they finally saw
yet another dimension to this superhero
that was fallible, that was human.
I'm not sad, I'm happy.
[Alexis] That was a mom.
I felt proud to play as a mom,
because my whole career,
I've been playing just as this person,
a single human being.
And now I'm playing as a mom,
and it just definitely
made a difference to me.
I was so happy
that I was able to go out there
and play for people
that supported me for so many years.
[umpire] Game, Serena Williams.
[Serena] It became
not necessarily about winning.
It became more or less about, like
I don't know.
In a weird way of, like, thank you.
[Jill] What I always struggled with
was Serena not getting the respect,
love, and admiration
for everything
that she's given of herself
to the world, to culture, to sport.
And so when I sat there
and listened to people
showering her with love
[crowd cheers]
And I was just hoping
that she could feel that.
There was something about that
that really solidified for me
what she represents
and how it surpassed the sport.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] The legend lives on.
In the history of our game,
there is only one,
and probably
there will never be another one.
I could feel everything, and I loved it.
And usually those moments
I don't really love.
For someone that's had
so many bad experiences in New York,
this ended up being the best experience
of my life ever in tennis.
[crowd cheers]
[Alexis] If you could bottle up
that energy in that arena and sell it,
you would be a multi-billionaire.
I've never been a part of something
that felt like that.
And she didn't even win the damn thing.
[umpire] Game, set, match, Tomljanovic.
[Alexis] And yet it had
this quality to it
that was so obviously special
and almost otherworldly.
I mean, it gives me chills
just thinking about it.
[Serena] It was the best tournament
I've ever played.
I still felt like I won.
I was able to really give my fans
an opportunity to say goodbye,
and I was able to say goodbye
to my fans as well,
which you don't really think about
until you're in that moment.
But I felt like it was
the best thing that I could have done.
[crowd cheers]
Um oh, my God. Thank you so much.
You guys were amazing today.
I tried, but Ajla just played
a little bit better.
Thank you, Daddy.
I know you're watching.
[voice breaking] Thanks, Mom.
Oh, my God. Um
[crowd cheers]
Oh, my God.
These are happy tears, I guess.
I don't know.
And I wouldn't be
I wouldn't be Serena
if there wasn't Venus,
so thank you, Venus.
[crowd cheers]
She's the only reason
that Serena Williams ever existed,
so, um, I don't know.
I just everyone from Jill to Isha
to my sister Lyn
to my husband, to Olympia, to Jemira,
everyone in that box,
it's been a fun ride, and, um
[crowd cheers]
[interviewer] Well, on behalf
of the whole tennis community,
we thank you
for letting us be part of this journey
and watching greatness
for the last 25 years.
It's been remarkable.
It's a long time.
[crowd cheers]
[Serena] It was the ultimate sendoff,
and I didn't expect that, you know.
And to not almost have that
would have been really sad.
And so I'm so grateful to, like,
everyone that supported me
all those years.
And even on the court,
like, I was crying or whatever,
but I remember
when Andre Agassi retired,
there wasn't a dry eye
in the locker room, you know.
And I was, like,
"Oh, this is so sad, you know."
Like I never thought
I would have that moment.
I always thought it would be
too hard for me to say goodbye,
but sometimes doing the hard thing
is the best thing,
and that's what it was.
It was definitely the best thing.
[interviewer] So Mr. Williams,
I'll ask you a few questions.
So, you know, I've sat with Serena now,
what, ten times, Serena?
We have studied your daughter's career.
She has 73 singles titles.
She spent 319 weeks
ranked number one in the world.
Four gold medals,
33 singles Grand Slam appearances
and 23 victories.
When I say all of that to you,
what does it make you feel?
Well, it's amazing.
But today when I look at Serena,
it's just phenomenal.
Matter of fact,
when I think about what Serena has done,
I couldn't have never thought that
she could do as much as she could do.
She's done so very well for herself
and her family, and on, and on.
You know what Grandpa taught me?
So first thing you do is turn.
This hand here,
don't bring it down too soon.
And I'm so proud of Serena
being a great, unbelievable champion.
[interviewer] Thank you for doing this.
It's a real privilege,
and I sure appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
-[Serena] Can you take a picture?
-[interviewer] Of course.
[chuckles]
[Serena] I began
in this two-bedroom house
in Compton, California,
dreaming of getting to a Grand Slam.
This is you at the U.S. Open.
And then finally getting one chance
and, you know, taking that chance.
And, essentially, never looking back.
[commentator] An expression
of omnipotence by Serena Williams.
[Serena] This was all
just the ultimate blessing
that I was able to play
and then I was able to win
and then I was able to be the best.
Like, that just doesn't happen
in anyone's life,
and somehow it happened in mine.
I think the best way to describe it
is I was, like,
on the greatest ride of my life.
At some point, you have to get off,
even though you don't want to.
And I had to get off
because I wanted to have more kids.
-You're gonna be a big sister.
-[squeals] Yes!
[both laugh]
-[Olympia] Good.
-Say what?
-I love that!
-[both laugh]
[interviewer] Would you want
your girls to play tennis?
Actually, I would. I actually
would want them to play tennis,
because I don't think
there's a better sport for women.
So we'll see. I don't know. We'll see.
Olympia's really good at it,
but she don't really love it.
[laughs]
But we'll see what happens.
[announcer] She's a phenomenon,
an icon, a legend.
Ladies and gentlemen, Serena Williams.
[crowd cheers]
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪
Get up ♪
It's all right now ♪