Did Serena Williams win her U.S. Open match vs. Ajla Tomljanović? No — however her legacy gained.

Following her loss within the U.S. Open third-round on Friday night time, Serena Williams’ skilled tennis profession is formally over. However in her second act, Williams could properly go away marks on tradition, enterprise and politics as indelible as these she left on tennis.

By no means the conformist, Williams has at all times been her distinctive and genuine self on the tennis courtroom and off. There could also be no greater cause for her monumental reputation (though her 23 Grand Slam titles might need one thing to do with it).

Serena and older sister Venus Williams defied tennis conference from the second they burst onto the skilled scene, on the cusp of the twenty first century. They designed their very own outfits, refused to kowtow to old style and prejudiced tropes and embodied energy, intelligence, magnificence and femininity with out having to compromise their reality.

As an alternative of showing stoic after hitting a wide ranging shot, Williams celebrates her greatness in full-throated, fist-pumping glory. And her worldwide legions of followers wouldn’t have it every other means, as evidenced by the 41-year-old star’s riveting, grueling, iconic match in opposition to Australian Ajla Tomljanović.

It needs to be her final ever skilled match. As she told Vogue magazine in August, she is “evolving away from tennis.” However don’t count on her nonconformist methods to vary as soon as she hangs up her racket.

And who amongst us might be stunned?

In 2000, when she was 18, Williams withdrew from a tournament in South Carolina in help of an NAACP boycott of the state’s Accomplice flag. She has achieved issues her personal means ever since. Williams is on the forefront of a special form of celebrity athlete: multi-hyphenate stars who — attributable to huge sources, ambition and expertise — not retire. They simply discover a new mountaintop.

The week earlier than the 2022 U.S. Open, Williams appeared on the New York Inventory Alternate, not in tennis sneakers however in trendy pumps, to ring the opening bell as CEO of Serena Ventures, her $111 million enterprise capital fund.

Williams’ firm already has invested in round 60 corporations, The New York Times reported, however she says she is especially all in favour of ladies and male enterprise homeowners of coloration, who’ve traditionally been underrepresented within the high-stakes world of enterprise capital investing. That cash philosophy and funding savvy might affect different public figures to assist degree the company taking part in area.

Certainly, tennis ace Naomi Osaka, winner of 4 Grand Slam titles, has already adopted her idol and grow to be a prominent investor herself.

Williams’ forays into style are extra established. From her childhood braids to her eye-catching dresses — and that French Open catsuit — Williams has at all times been extremely concerned within the creation of her (perennially Nike-branded) match appears. Regardless of the efforts of body-shaming internet trolls, Williams revels in her fuller-figured, athletic physique. The concept that magnificence is available in all styles and sizes is a part of what motivates her style line, S by Serena, which she debuted at New York Style Week in 2020.

As a reigning GOAT (biggest of all time), Williams is a part of a rarefied membership. In contrast to many (however actually not all) GOATs of a long time previous — paging fellow Nike luminary Michael Jordan — youthful stars like Williams, LeBron James and others appear more and more keen to talk out forcefully on politics with out worrying about sponsorship sensitivities or fan blowback. She has highlighted the cruel excesses of mass incarceration, homelessness, gun violence and pay inequality.

Williams’ 2018 HBO miniseries, “Being Serena,” gave viewers a behind-the-scenes have a look at how life as a Black feminine sports activities celebrity intersects with racial animus. Williams additionally shared particulars of a being pregnant difficult by her historical past of blood clots and made unnecessarily annoying by dismissive responses from medical workers.

Daughter Olympia was born wholesome and turns 5 on Sept. 1. However Williams’ expertise resonated with many Black American ladies. Their maternal mortality fee is 2 to a few instances larger than that of white ladies, in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After her first-round U.S. Open victory Monday night time, Williams advised reporters she intends to present Olympia a sibling.

Williams has additionally partnered with Serving to Arms Jamaica to construct an elementary college on the Caribbean island and joined forces with Construct Africa to assemble colleges in Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe, one philanthropic effort amongst many.

Certainly, Williams seems to grasp much better than most the most important affect star athletes can have socially, culturally and politically.

Once I interviewed Williams on the 2006 U.S. Open for a tennis e book challenge, she advised me she wished to star in a film about Althea Gibson — tennis’ first Black main champion within the Fifties. Williams impressed me along with her information of Gibson’s struggles, taught to her and Venus Williams by dad and mom Richard Williams and Oracene Value.

Though Williams not appears to have the performing bug, she and Venus Williams had been govt producers of an Oscar-winning movie about their father, “King Richard.” It wouldn’t shock me if Serena Williams as a producer offers the underappreciated Gibson her due in a function movie.

Really, there’s little or no Williams might do in her post-tennis life to uplift and encourage others that will shock me. She’s already achieved extra in her 40 years than most superstars accomplish ever. And but extremely, with out the dedication and pressures of athletic competitors, her most vital contributions could also be but to return.