Serena Williams recently shared a few details about how she has been keeping busy since her retirement from professional tennis.
Williams hung up her racquet at the 2022 US Open after losing to Australia's Ajla Tomljanovic 7-5, 6-7(4), 6-1 in the third round. In the days leading up to her retirement, the 23-time Major winner had told Vogue that she wanted to 'evolve towards other things that were important to her.'
The 42-year-old has made good on her promise, going by her latest video on TikTok. In the video, Williams can be seen applying makeup on her face while explaining to her fans one of her new business avenues — investing in early-stage startups.
"Hey everyone, I thought it'd be really fun to kinda talk about things that I do now that I don't play professional tennis anymore. Kinda evolved from that. One thing that I have been doing, that I'm doing for years and years is investments," Serena Williams said in her recent TikTok video. "So I invest in a lot of companies, early companies, so think early stage, where companies have just started. And, I've always done this, I've actually been investing for over 14 years."
Serena Williams also revealed that she had been working on her business portfolio during her career, as she wanted to have a "plan B" after retirement from tennis. Towards the end of the video, the American claimed that over 85 different ventures had been funded by her, out of which a small percentage were unicorn and decacorn companies.
"Just been an entrepreneur, while I was playing tennis, it's super important for me to make a plan B while I was doing my plan A. Sounds weird, like a plan B. But it was fun, it was really important for me to do that, she added. "So, in my personal portfolio, I have invested in over 85 companies, maybe? Also, 14 are unicorn and a few decacorns."
Serena Williams won 23 Major titles in her professional tennis career
Serena Williams has a very good argument to be the greatest female tennis player of all time. The American achieved several exemplary feats during her career, one of which is her haul of 23 Major titles.
The 42-year-old also holds the women's record for most Major wins at 541. Outside the Grand Slam tournaments, she has a few more impressive records: most WTA 1000 titles, most consecutive weeks as the women's World No. 1 (tied with Steffi Graf), and being the oldest top-ranked player in the WTA Tour's history at 35.
Furthermore, Serena Williams was utterly dominant against the rest of the women's field, winning 178 matches against them for 72 losses across a career spanning more than two decades. She also has the distinction of being the career prize money leader on the WTA Tour at $94.8 million.
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