For a player of Serena Williams’s vintage, doubles is a much easier discipline to pursue than singles. For context, the apparently ageless Martina Navratilova was 49 when she won her final major – a mixed-doubles Wimbledon crown alongside fellow American Bob Bryan – in the summer of 2006. By contrast, Navratilova’s last singles major came in 1990, when she was only 33.
Nevertheless, Williams is understood to have such unshakeable self-belief that she fancies the idea of facing the best singles players in the world. In Melbourne in January, the chat around the commentary boxes was that some of her old peers, now working behind the microphone, had received text messages to the effect of “Let me at ‘em!”. This doubles appearance seems to represent a toe in the water, as a step towards a possible singles return if all goes well.
Brief as it might be, the grass-court season would give Williams the best opportunity to stage a singles coup. Not only does grass lend itself to shorter rallies than hard courts or clay – a bonus for someone of her age – but it also favours players with powerful serves: an area where Williams has always stood head and shoulders above her rivals.
Williams has been secretive about her plans, refusing to confirm any rumours, and writing in a social media post last December: “I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy.” However, she has shared footage of herself practising with quality hitting partners, including world No 79 Alycia Parks and former ATP player Jesse Levine.
While tennis chat might be off the agenda, Williams has been contrastingly open about her recent weight loss, which she ascribes to the use of a GLP-1 drug – Zepbound – that works in a similar way to Ozempic or Mounjaro. The drug is marketed by Ro, an American healthcare provider where her husband, Alexis Ohanian, sits on the board. She says that Zepbound has helped her lose 31 pounds, and succeeded where any amount of running, biking and step-machine training had previously failed.
“There’s a scene in my HBO documentary where you see my coach telling me, ‘You have to lose weight’,” Williams told Vogue last year. “But it was so hard after I had [my first daughter] Olympia… My whole life is being in the gym, working out, running, training, HIIT training, dancing, every single thing you can think of. I would always get to a certain point on the scale, but I could never get below that. That’s when I decided that it was time to try something different and got on the GLP-1 with Ro.”