Serena Williams said goodbye to a legendary career in tennis in the recent US Open, playing her final set of matches to roaring applause.
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In a recent appearance on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the sports icon opened up more about her departure and whether she'd make a comeback.
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Of course, the obvious joke in the segment involved another major sporting star, Tom Brady, who infamously announced his retirement and immediately rendered it null and void by getting back into the game.
Jimmy's first question ended up leaning in that direction as well as he asked Serena: "So there's no chance of you pulling a Tom Brady and saying 'maybe I'm not ready' and coming back via pickleball?"
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Through laughter, the mom-of-one said everything with her response without really diving headfirst into the drama surrounding the football player.
"You know what, Tom Brady started an amazing trend," she replied, leaving Jimmy keeling over in laughter. "That's what I want to say."
Serena joked about Tom Brady inspiring a comeback
The athlete even told Jimmy that she originally intended to have a "quiet goodbye," where she'd sneakily bow out of the game with a social media announcement or something similar.
However, her farewell couldn't have been more grand, as the Olympian used none other than Vogue's epic September Issue to announce the bittersweet news.
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In the as-told-to story, Serena admits: "I have never liked the word retirement,"explaining that: "It doesn't feel like a modern word to me."
She maintained: "I've been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people.
The tennis star played her final match at the US Open
"Maybe the best word to describe what I'm up to is evolution. I'm here to tell you that I'm evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me."
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