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Serena Williams and Australian coach Rennae Stubbs flag double standards of mothers having to choose between sport and parenthood

As Serena Williams prepares to farewell the sport she dominated for two decades, an Australian coach has revealed the lengths young players on the women’s tennis tour are going to so they can have long careers without interruption.

Williams flagged in a Vogue article titled Serena’s Farewell that she was not far away from ending her tennis career, hinting that it may be after the US Open, which starts at the end of the month.

The 23-time major winner said “something’s got to give” for a number of reasons; partly because she turns 41 at the end of September, partly because of her many business interests that are a full-time job in their own right, and partly because she wants to have a second child.

Williams, who was two months pregnant with daughter Olympia when she won her last major, the 2017 Australian Open, pointed out that while she “loved every second of being pregnant” it was unfair that she had to choose one or the other while most male athletes do not.

“I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair,” she said, pointing to 45-year-old father of three Tom Brady, who retired as an NFL quarterback and then un-retired last off-season.

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Rennae Stubbs on the choice women have to make around tennis careers and parenthood

“If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family.”

Former doubles world number one Rennae Stubbs told Radio National Breakfast that many players on the WTA tour were exploring fertility options early in their careers so they could play tennis for a decade or more without missing their window to have kids.

“I know players who want to have children, who want to have a family, have [frozen] their eggs, because they want to play until their mid-30s or 40s,” Stubbs, who coached stars Sam Stosur, Karolína Plíšková and Eugenie Bouchard, said.

“And there’s so much money in tennis now, they want to keep going and they can sustain themselves and their families.

Rennae Stubbs speaks to Karolina Pliskova while sitting on the on-court chair during a tennis match.
Rennae Stubbs (left) has coached a number of players on the women’s tour, including former world number one Karolína Plíšková (right).(Getty: Chris Hyde)

“So they freeze eggs so they can have kids later on in life. But think about Tom Brady or Roger Federer or Rafa [Nadal] now; you can have children and keep playing because you’re not the one birthing it and taking nine months to have the child and then the recovery after the child.

“There’s no question that it’s way more difficult for women. No question about it.”

It is not only globe-trotting tennis players who have made the decision, with WNBA stars Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart, English Super Netball player Geva Mentor and USWNT forward Sydney Leroux speaking openly about their egg retrieval processes.

In a post on the Reproductive Health and Wellness Center’s website about UFC fighter Carla Esparza freezing her eggs, the Orange County-based IVF and fertility experts wrote that the procedure is becoming increasingly “popular with young professional women who lead busy, active lifestyles and don ‘t want to run the risk of waiting too long before starting their family for fear of egg viability.”

“Women in the professional athletic field often face the risk of fertility issues frequently, as the nature of intense athletic professions may put women at a higher likelihood of irregular ovulation,” the website reads.

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