Serena Williams’ dominance at Wimbledon came to an abrupt end.
In 2022, the 23-time Grand Slam champion lost in the first round at SW19 to a player ranked outside the top 100 in a match that signaled her playing days were coming to an end.
Williams enjoyed a highly successful career with 39 major titles across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles.
Along with four Olympic gold medals, the now-retired 43-year-old is widely regarded as the best women’s tennis player of all time.
Williams’ grip on tennis during her plays days also extended to Wimbledon, the grass-court Grand Slam where she won seven singles titles.
However, in 2022, during her final year on tour before retirement, Williams was humbly eliminated in the first round to Harmony Tan, a little-known Frenchwoman.
Tan is a Paris native with Cambodian and Vietnamese parents. Her win was a full-circle moment as she said she often watched Williams growing up.
The 27-year-old turned professional when she was just 14 and this was her first match against Williams.
It was the first-time she’d ever played someone as accomplished as the 73-time WTA title winner, and she did the unthinkable.
“I’m really surprised today,” Tan said of her win in the on-court interview at the time.
Williams, who was ranked 1,204th in the world at the time of her loss, ended her career later that year.
It was expected Tan, who was 24 a the time, would kick on after that career-win and enjoy a steady rise in tennis.
That was not the case, however, despite breaking into the top 100 with her win against Williams.
In fact, Tan would never get a victory at another Grand Slam again.
The 27-year-old’s career now sees her play in more ITF competitions than Grand Slams.
Being ranked world No. 257, she does not have enough ranking points to play at most WTA events.
While Tan has won three ITF titles, the Frenchwoman has not won a single tour-level title in her career and has failed to qualify for a Grand Slam in three years.
Her last major match was a 2022 first-round loss to Bianca Andreescu at the US Open.
Tan’s career prize money has also taken a significant dip. In 2022 at the time of her Wimbledon win over Williams, she earned $624,000.
While in 2023, Tan earned just $91,406 and in 2024 this was $132,985.
So far in 2025, the former world No.90 has won $5,679.
Tan’s career demonstrates the brutal reality of tennis, from riding the highs of Grand Slam wins to playing ITF tournaments in front of half a dozen people.
Tennis has no protections for the revenue of players and while rankings can be protected for injuries, once a player’s career starts to tail off, their income suffers a similar fate.
