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Seeing Serena's defeat at the US Open reminded me of my age and my ambition

2019-09-10T03:10:33.684Z


[OPINION] How does a woman deal with defeat when she made her way to number one and tried to stay there for a whole race, enduring losses, over and over again, against millions ...


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Editor's Note: Elizabeth Wallace is the author of The Ambition Decisions: What Women Know About Work, Family, and the Path to Building a Life . He has written for The Atlantic, Architectural Digest, Domino, Fast Company, Quartz, InStyle, Us Weekly and Shondaland . The opinions in this column are those of the author.

(CNN) - On Saturday I watched stressed the US Open women's final between Serena Williams and Bianca Andreescu, sending frantic text messages to my friends in each first lost service and in each repetition of the confusing moves. Seeing Serena, something the world has done collectively since winning his first Grand Slam title in 1999, has been more than spectator sport. But it has also been a live and live study of women's ambition and how it changes, or not, over time. Last night, seeing Serena fall short in the fight for her 24th Grand Slam title was a reminder stabbing for ambitious women of the Serena generation, and also older, of the inevitable career changes that come with age.

We have seen Serena grow from teenager to woman on the court. We have seen it revolutionize sport, especially for girls and women of color. He has faced racism, sexism and public criticism, not to mention a number of health problems. Despite these challenges, she has become not only an icon and a role model, but also a businesswoman, philanthropist and activist.

READ : Bianca Andreescu defeats Serena Williams and wins her first US Open and Grand Slam

We have observed Serena not only as a champion in her field, but as a real person that evolves over time: as a girl, sister, daughter, wife and mother (she won the Australian Open in January 2017 with two months of pregnancy) . Serena has humanized tennis, allowing the public to have an open door to a real woman with tremendous ups and downs, like outbursts of anger and tears on the court. She also suffered serious complications after giving birth to her daughter in September 2017, including a pulmonary embolism or a blood clot in the arteries of the lungs. Coughing caused his caesarean section to open, revealing a large lump of clotted blood in his abdomen. She almost died, she said, and then she was bedridden for six weeks. Serena spoke publicly about her experiences and shared her "postpartum emotions" on social networks.

But he returned to the game. She continues to be a contender even while juggling dealing with the role of ambitious working mother, an issue that has been raised frequently in discussions about her career and is rarely addressed when it comes to male players. Many other professional women who have not won any Grand Slams can certainly be identified.

Reflecting with a neighbor about last night's defeat, I was enraged when he asked himself: “Maybe everything has changed for her since she became a mother. Maybe the same things are no longer important. But I haven't given birth, so I don't know. ”

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For me, more pressing than 'how childbirth can change a woman's priorities', is really the question 'how years after childbirth can transform them'. Has everything changed for Serena since she became a mother? I don't know, but I can answer for myself, because I've become a mother twice in the last twelve years. And the answer for me is yes and no. When I say "yes", I mean that my professional impulse, my level of ambition, my identity, what is important to me, everything has changed since I became a mother. However, it is also a "no", it has not changed. Both things can be and are true. I have divided my professional life since I had children, but I still yearn for success and I want to be challenged with high level work and intellectual rigor. I also want more flexibility and time with my children. I have felt this conflict almost every day for the past 12 years.

I imagine that Serena also feels this conflict: she feels guilty when she is away from her adorable two-year-old daughter and also still wants to win that 24th Grand Slam - she loves him so much that when she can't get it, she could scream or cry in public, both badly seen actions for women in the workplace. Again, both situations may be true.

That is the first emotional paradox I experienced watching, and then processing, last night's game. The second was the bittersweet reality that Serena, having lost to a teenager who was not yet born when she won her first title, has to hand over the reins of tennis to the next generation, one to which she has given so much.

This second paradox was a reminder that even the champions among us, those who sweat, fight, curse and cry to stay on top, remain vulnerable, of course, to competition, but also to the simple passage of time. No matter how ambitious, hardworking and talented we can be, nor how strong we can support each other, eventually, we not only work for our own successes, but to give the baton to someone 10 or 20 years younger than us.

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Now I am 40 years old and I have experienced a series of earnings in my career along with some losses as well. Seeing Serena accept her runner-up trophy on Saturday was a Zen acceptance test.

My 12-year-old daughter saw Serena live at the US Open for the first time earlier this week, and was radically inspired by her, as we have all done for two decades. When we saw how Serena thanked her team with humor for resisting her "ups and downs," my daughter said: "This is very uncomfortable." My daughter is too young to understand that failure, however painful, is an inevitable part of achievement. It is something we all learn to accept, hopefully increasing resistance over time. I, on the other hand, thought the speech was authentic and elegant. How does a woman deal with defeat when she made her way to number one and tried to stay there for a whole race, enduring losses, over and over again, against millions?

When Serena thanked the crowd for helping her improve her game and promised to continue competing, it was a master class of grace and humility in a world that sometimes feels like every woman is speaking for herself. A couple of weeks before his 38th birthday, Serena is the oldest Grand Slam finalist in history. He is aging in front of our eyes, and wonderfully with acceptance. He is also transmitting greatness to the next champions of his sport, while continuing to appear and fighting for it. Both things can be true.

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2019-09-10

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