Now, Serena Williams has amassed over 15 million Instagram followers and even more fans over the years. She is a literal icon.

She has won a whopping twenty-three Grand Slam singles titles and, as a result, she is now considered one of the greatest female tennis players of all time.

Serena has been ranked as the No. 1 in singles on 8 separate occasions during her career and in total, she has been No. 1 for 319 weeks, which ranks third in the Open Era among female players behind Graf and Martina Navratilova.

Williams is understandably considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time and she’s one of the hardest players to beat.But she’s not just a tennis superstar she is also a powerful woman and won’t let anyone stand in her way when it comes to topics that matter to her.

She advocates strongly for the equality of women – in particular, female athletes but it hasn’t been an easy ride to success.

During her women’s finals match against Naomi Osaka (who went on to win the title), the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, gave Serena a violation for a supposed “code violation for coaching.”

She held her own during the heated confrontation. She was simply standing up for herself. Pointing out that male tennis players get away with a lot more than what she was accused of and disciplined for.

Serena has had to get past a lot of obstacles to get where she is now.

Serena, as well as her sister Venus, have been scrutinized in the past for the way in which they wear their hair, as well as being cruelly trolled and discriminated against because of their race. Even though thousands have flooded to the Williams sisters’ defense, there’s no doubt that racism is still a huge problem.

Despite her ever-growing fan base. There’s no doubting who her biggest fan is… And that is, of course, her daughter.

Serena Married her husband Alexis Ohanian back in 2017 and just before their marriage, their daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. was born but her birth came with some terrifying complications and she’s now opened up about her experience, and how nurses ignored her plea for help.

She revealed in an interview with ELLE, that the hospital staff failed to listen to her concerns.

“So much of what happened after that is still a blur,” Serena shared. “I may have passed out a few times. In my haze, I wondered if I should ask someone about my drip. In 2010, I learned I had blood clots in my lungs — clots that, had they not been caught in time, could have killed me.”

Since her terrifying experience, she has always been cautious of getting another clot. “It wasn’t a one-off; I’m at high risk for blood clots. I asked a nurse, ‘When do I start my heparin drip? Shouldn’t I be on that now?’”

But the nurse’s response was less than satisfactory: “The response was, ‘Well, we don’t really know if that’s what you need to be on right now.’ No one was really listening to what I was saying,” she added.

After repeatedly asking her nurse over and over to be put on blood thinners and for a CT scan, she finally got a doctor to agree with her…

“I fought hard, and I ended up getting the CAT scan,” Serena said. “I’m so grateful to her. Lo and behold, I had a blood clot in my lungs, and they needed to insert a filter into my veins to break up the clot before it reached my heart.”

Being vocal about her experience has shone an important light on the treatment of marginalized groups during childbirth. Many social media users have thanked Serena for speaking out…

Serena shared with ELLE that “black women are nearly three times more likely to die during or after childbirth than their white counterparts” here in the U.S.

More needs to be done to prevent this shocking statistic.

Now, Williams has confirmed she is hanging up her racket following the US Open.

“I have never liked the word retirement,” she began. “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.”

It’s the end of an era.