Serena Williams Retirement: Tiger Woods Pulls Up to US Open to Support Tennis Queen

Serena Williams is bringing out quite the celebrity crowd in her last US Open before riding off into retirement. And today, a familiar face showed up in New York to support “the Queen”: PGA legend Tiger Woods.

Tiger, sitting alongside his girlfriend, was spotted cheering on Williams during her second round match against Anett Kontaveit.

When announcing her retirement, Serena Williams revealed that she went to Tiger Woods before announcing that she was going to walk away from tennis.

“I said, ‘I don’t know what to do: I think I’m over it, but maybe I’m not over [tennis],’ ” Williams wrote in Vogue. “He’s Tiger, and he was adamant that I be a beast the same way he is! He said, ‘Serena, what if you just gave it two weeks? You don’t have to commit to anything. You just go out on the court every day for two weeks and give it your all and see what happens.’ I said, ‘All right, I think I can do that.’ ”

Taking Tiger’s advice, Serena has returned to the court for one last run, adding that it “felt magical” to pick up a racket again.

“I was good. I was really good,” Williams wrote of her comeback in Vogue. “I went back and forth about whether to play Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open after that. As I’ve said, this whole evolution thing has not been easy for me.”

Serena Williams made a remarkable comeback from injury to compete in Wimbledon, losing her first round matchup to Harmony Tan.

“And I don’t know if I will be ready to win New York,” she said. “But I’m going to try.”


Welcome to the game outside the game! Follow us on our Sideaction Twitter handle, Instagram, and Facebook for the latest on sports and pop culture news across the web!

More from Tennis

More News & Stories