Serena Williams's retirement announcement a full-circle moment in Canada
CBC
When Serena Williams made the first professional tennis appearance of her career in Quebec City on a chilly late-October day in 1995, at just 14 years old, there was no pomp and circumstance, no introductions and certainly no fans watching.
No one really had any idea who she was or what she was about to become.
The kid from Compton, Calif., who had travelled north to la belle province to begin her foray into the tennis world, was competing in a Tier 3 tournament qualifying match against 149th-ranked American Annie Miller.
It was unmemorable, lacklustre and the match was over in less than an hour. Miller thumped Williams 6-1, 6-1.
That trip to Canada in those formative years has stuck with one of the greatest tennis players of all time. It fuelled her drive to be the best.
And when she returned to the pro circuit two years after that opening match defeat, Williams was ready to take on the world and change the game forever.
It only seems fitting then that after starting this tennis journey in Canada, she would announce her career is coming to an end in Canada.
Williams says she is "evolving away" from tennis, her way of saying retirement.
In a lengthy point-of-view article in Vogue Magazine, Williams says she's leaving the game in September.
WATCH | Williams to retire from tennis:
"I don't know how I'm going to be able to look at this magazine when it comes out, knowing that this is it, the end of a story that started in Compton, California, with a little Black girl who just wanted to play tennis," Williams wrote in Vogue.
Now Canadian tennis fans get one last chance to serenade and celebrate the 23-time Grand Slam singles winner.
WATCH | Fans in Toronto pay tribute to Williams:
In the 27 years that have passed since that unremarkable loss to Annie Miller, Williams has amassed eye-popping results.
