Serena Williams is denying any talk that she is making a return to the court for the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n
The 23-time Grand Slam tournament winner took to X on Tuesday to say that while her name was listed in the International Registered Testing Pool \u2014 something required before returning to play \u2014 she is not coming out of retirement.<\/p>\n
Matthew Futterman of The Athletic<\/a> reported on Tuesday that Williams had informed the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) she is pursuing reentry into the anti-doping pool.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Williams’ name was among others on an ITIA player pool list from Oct. 6<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cShe has notified us that she wants to be reinstated into the testing pool,\u201d an ITIA spokesperson told The Athletic. \u201cI do not know if this means she is coming back, or just giving herself the option. All I can say is she\u2019s back in the pool and therefore subject to whereabouts.\u201d<\/p>\n Players listed have to be in the pool for six months before being eligible to return to play.<\/p>\n The 44-year-old Williams last played a competitive match during the third round<\/a> of the 2022 U.S. Open. The day after her defeat<\/a>, she applied for official retirement with the ITIA, which meant she was exempt from random drug testing.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Williams told Porter magazine in a recent interview<\/a> that she’s still adjusting to no longer being on the court.<\/p>\n \u201cNot as much as this time last year,\u201d Williams said about missing the sport. \u201cNo matter how prepared you are to retire, and particularly from doing something every day at such a high level, it\u2019s hard. I really prepped myself the best way I could, but it\u2019s something that\u2019s still a little difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams has kept busy in her post-tennis life as a mom, with her foundation and as part of the Angel City FC ownership group along with her husband Alexis Ohanian, among numerous other ventures.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n According to Ben Rothenberg<\/a>, Williams had previously sought a comeback in August, with a likely eye to play doubles at the 2025 U.S. Open with her sister, Venus. That never materialized.<\/p>\n While Serena has not played in over three years, Venus Williams overcame numerous injuries and returned at August’s U.S. Open after receiving a wild-card invite<\/a>. She reached the third round in singles<\/a> and made it to the quarterfinals in doubles with Leylah Fernandez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams is denying any talk that she is making a return to the court for the first…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":420588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[196573,196571,196572,5224,62,1464,67,132,68,46604],"class_list":{"0":"post-420587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-international-tennis-integrity-agency","9":"tag-itia","10":"tag-player-pool","11":"tag-serena-williams","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-venus-williams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115652678415712896","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}