Garcia announces imminent retirement; will play last Roland Garros

A former WTA Finals champion and Top 5 player, Caroline Garcia leaves behind a legacy of power, perseverance and a plan for what comes next.

Caroline Garcia, one of the most athletic and aggressive players ever produced by France, announced her imminent retirement Friday.

She’ll play Bernarda Pera in a first-round match that could be her last at Roland Garros, though she will also compete in "a few" more tournaments this year.

"It's time to say goodbye," the 31-year-old wrote. "After 15 years competing at the highest level, and more than 25 years putting pretty much every second of my life into it, I feel ready to start a new chapter.

"My tennis journey hasn’t always been easy. Since my early days, tennis has been much more than just winning or losing. It's been love or hate. Happiness or anger. Still, I'm deeply grateful for this journey -- for everything tennis has given me, and for how much it's helped me become a strong, passionate, hard-working woman. But now, it's time for something else. My body and my personal goals need it.

"Still, this is not over -- not just yet. I have a few tournaments left. The first one is at home, at Roland Garros. My 14th consecutive time being part of it. And my last. So to all my tennis family who'll be around: let’s meet one more time, to dream, and fight together. In the coming days, there will be more time to share what's next for me. But for now, I just want to focus on living these last weeks as a tennis pro to the fullest."

Garcia won 11 titles across every surface, 350-plus matches and more than $18 million in prize money at the WTA Tour level. In 2023, she led all Hologic WTA Tour players with 462 aces.

She won her maiden Hologic WTA Tour title in Bogota in 2014, and thrived on home soil at the start of her career. Her second singles trophy came at Strasbourg in 2016, and two weeks after that created one of her most cherished memories by claiming the doubles crown with Kristina Mladenovic at Roland Garros. Six years later, Garcia and Mladenovic would capture the title for a second time in 2022. In 2017, Garcia also reached her first major quarterfinal in singles at her home major.

In 2017, Garcia won titles in Wuhan and Beijing and vaulted into the Top 10 at year’s end.

Five years later, at the age of 29, Garcia staged a startling career renaissance.

The 2022 season began with a title on the grass in Bad Homburg, followed by a victory on clay in Warsaw and a hard-court win in Cincinnati. She advanced to the semifinals at the US Open and qualified for the WTA Finals in Fort Worth. In a statistic that underlined her versatility, Garcia was the only woman that year to win titles on three different surfaces.

Garcia defeated Daria Kasatkina and Coco Gauff in the group stage, then Maria Sakkari in the semifinals. In a rousing final that captured her power and style, Garcia bested Aryna Sabalenka 7-6(4), 6-4 for the most important title of her career.

Playing an abbreviated schedule, Garcia comes into Roland Garros with a 3-6 record and sits at No. 145 in the PIF WTA Rankings. Her most recent match came in March, a 7-5, 6-2 loss to Iga Swiatek in the second round at the Miami Open.

Professional athletes can sometimes find themselves adrift on retiring, but Garcia has built herself a solid foundation for life after tennis.

She was one of five WTA Tour players enrolled in the Harvard Business School’s 2024-25 Crossover Intro Business program. In a very real sense, professional tennis players are independent contractors. They are essentially the CEOs of their personal brand, employing a support team, navigating a global schedule. The Harvard program is a finishing school of sorts for young future entrepreneurs.

Garcia and fiancée Borja Durán launched a podcast last year, “Tennis Insider Club,” which features their exclusive interviews with people involved in the sport. As a result, Garcia became more involved and interested in the business side.

“I always believed I was too busy with tennis to go to university,” Garcia said. “I’m discovering a new environment, seeing different perspectives. Obviously, when you arrive at the end of your career, you want to start building your future.”

“Investing prize money, how to spend reasonably -- because it’s a career that ends quite early,” Garcia said. “There are some things I wished I learned earlier, like finance and how to manage money for the future.

“But I think it’s also important to go outside of your bubble, because tennis is a very small bubble.”

Post tennis, Garcia’s bubble is about to get much larger.

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