WILLIAMS PLAYING BY HER OWN RULES AS SHE PREPARES FOR LAST HURRAH

THERE are many ways to retire: the out-on-top method; the long goodbye; and then the infinite versions of the fate to which all mortals succumb, heart no longer in it, body no longer able to be, or a combination of both.

- Malik Ouzia

Serena Williams, forever the master of her own narrative, has not begun this whole 'retirement' malarkey by paying much heed to the playbook. For one, yesterday's announcement came not in an Instagram post, a press conference or The New York Times, but in Vogue. Second, she says it is not a retirement at all, simply her "evolving away from tennis".

What is to come in the final weeks of Williams' epic career before what we shall, for the avoidance of argument, call her exit from the sporting realm, appears unlikely to conform entirely with any one of those forecasted endings either. More likely, it will carry elements of all three.