Professional Athletes Find It Difficult to End a Career Shortly after losing in the first round at Wimbledon last week, Venus Williams had a testy exchange at a news conference. Williams had played the match without the power and passion that have been her signature for 15 years, and was pressed about her future. Jonathan Brady/European Pressphoto Agency Routed at Wimbledon, Venus Williams said she still had "great tennis in me." Q. Obviously, you've been very open that the Olympics was a major goal. What is going to drive you after that? You're 32, struggling, have a lot of other interests. A. Am I struggling? Q. A little bit. No? Tell me what the struggle is. Q. To win matches? A. You think? I just want you to be clear. If you say I'm struggling, tell me how I should do better, you know. Q. I'm just asking what's going to drive you to stay with it after the Olympics. Finally, Williams said: "I feel like I am a great player. I am a great player. Unfortunately, I had to deal with circumstances that people don't normally have to deal with in this sport. But I can't be discouraged by that, so I'm up for challenges. I have great tennis in me. I just need the opportunity. There's no way I'm just going to sit down and give up just because I have a hard time the first five or six freaking tournaments back. You know, that's just not me. One of the timeless and most fascinating rituals in sports news media is presiding over the decline of a great athlete. As difficult as it is to see great athletes hang on, they have an even harder time letting go, and few do so voluntarily. The list is short: Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Bill Russell, a few others. Venus Williams's remarks at Wimbledon reflect the determination, commitment and will of a championship athlete. They also underline the difficulty a champion has of entertaining the notion of the impending end of a brilliant run. Williams is battling Sjogren's syndrome, an energy-draining disease with no known cure that forced her to miss five months. But she insisted her career was not over. Elite athletes have a reservoir of self-confidence and an unshakable belief in their ability to overcome difficulties. They are often the last to understand that their career has run its course. Bernie Williams knows this better than most. Williams played center field for the Yankees from 1991 to 2006. He spent his entire career with the Yankees and played for four World Series champions. Williams said that facing the end of his career - and accepting it - was one of the most difficult things he had done. It's one thing for an athlete like Venus Williams to perhaps be forced out of the game with a debilitating disease. Being told you have simply lost it is quite another blow. In any event, disengagement is difficult, and those who are able usually put it off as long as possible. What helps many break the fall is having developed a career and an identity outside sports. Venus Williams has done that. She began V*Starr Interiors in 2002. In 2007, she earned an associate degree in fashion design from The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. Bernie Williams, too, managed to create a life off the field. He had a love of the guitar as a child growing up in Puerto Rico and began thinking of a professional music career midway through his tenure with the Yankees. "It's a personal journey, and everybody approaches it in a different manner," Williams said. It helps when you have something waiting for you on the other side. Music had a lot to do in making it easier. It doesn't mean that it wasn't hard. The transition was a hard process to go through just because of the nature of what every player goes through while they're playing, especially if you're in the middle of your career, you have this sense of thinking this will never end. You're feeling on top of the world and you're getting all the accolades, all the attention. Once it's not there anymore, it's like somebody pulled the rug out from under your feet.