Serena Williams Reminds Us How Much Fun It Is To Play With ‘Nothing To Lose’

What is there left to add after President Joe Biden, the former first lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, LeBron James, Derek Jeter, Billie Jean King, Tiger Woods and other luminaries sent their love and tributes to Serena Williams on Friday following her 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-1 U.S. Open loss to Ajla Tomljanovic in Arthur Ashe Stadium?

Oh, we’ll find something.

Let’s start with her last victory in this year’s Open, or rather with her post-match interview after beating the second-ranked player in the world, Anett Kontaveit, 7-6(4), 2-6, 6-2, earlier last the week. During the interview, Williams seemed, well, freer and more joyous than ever. And it wasn’t because she won.

In the interview, conducted at center court, where she had won six singles championships, Williams was asked whether she was surprised by the victory.

“I’m just Serena,” she said, a sly grin washing over her face. “Honestly,” she continued. “I am super competitive. I am looking at everything as a bonus. I don’t have anything to prove, I don’t have anything to win and I have nothing to lose. I have had an ‘X’ on my back since 1999, and I am just enjoying it and it has been a long time since I have done that."

The lesson? There’s nothing like the freedom that comes when you’re playing with house money, when no one expects much of you and you can swing away. In those moments, you get the greatest gift of all: joy. It’s admirable to set the bar for yourself very high and have ambitious goals, but don’t forget to enjoy the journey because that is how most of us are going to spend the majority of our lives: on our journeys. We may not become the greatest of all time at what we do, but the chances are great we’ll have a blast getting there if we can keep our wins and losses in proper perspective. And where is there? Well, that’s kind of the point.

Williams is not entirely sure where her next “there” will be, but she’s looking forward to the next phase of life as a mother and as an entrepreneur.

It’s a pretty safe bet to say that Williams has enjoyed many aspects of her world-class journey. However, the palpable joy in doing what she loved to do was never so evident as it was on that evening when the 23-time Grand Slam winner reiterated she was ready to “evolve” into the next phase of her life.

“Call it Serena 2.0,” she joked to yet another roar from the crowd of nearly 30,000.

At 40 years old, Williams is literally old enough to be the parent of some of the women she competed against in the latter part of her career. To add perspective to her achievement, consider that when she won her first U.S. Open in 1999, a skinny high school kid by the name of LeBron James hadn’t even made his high school basketball team back in Akron, Ohio. When Williams won her first U.S. Open in 1999, Lionel Messi was three years away from playing his first season with Barcelona’s youth soccer team.

The U.S. Open was the tournament in which Williams basically ushered in the Serena Era by defeating in succession the Grand Slam champions Kim Clijsters, Conchita Martinez, Monica Seles, and Lindsay Davenport to reach the final and defeat the world’s top-ranked player, Martina Hingis.

If you think about it, Williams has spanned not one, not two, but three eras of tennis: the one she entered in 1995 as a rookie and sister of the phenomenal Venus Williams; the era she defined and dominated up until the last couple of years; and the one she is exiting, when she remained a threat to players half her age.

We often write in this space of the need to be disciplined and focused, to leave nothing on the court and to not give up as some of the core traits of leadership. We’re not backpedaling an inch on this list; Williams could never have achieved the things she has without developing the full motherlode of such qualities in her approach to her craft.

But the truth is that another important trait we’ve extolled before is the need for continuous learning. And Williams offers us a shining moment of learning, which is something that the great ones often do. And that lesson is to find ways not to let the pressure of expectation – either our own or other people’s – control our lives. Find your joy as early in life (and you career) as you can, in whatever endeavor you find yourself, and the money and accolades will come as they may.

After Williams lost on Saturday, she held another on-court press conference in which she thanked those who helped her reach the top and win so often. She thanked her family and friends, and then she offered yet another lesson, one of being sure to bring others along on our journey.

“To everyone who ever said, ‘Go, Serena!’ …well, here we are.”