We should have seen this coming.
Serena Williams pointedly declined to use any form of the verb “to retire” following her last official WTA match, at the 2022 US Open. Instead, the then-41-year old legend claimed she had “evolved away from tennis.” If a report in the Substack Bounces is accurate, she is evolving right back into it.
According to author Ben Rothenberg, at some point in recent months Williams reapplied to be on the list of players who are in the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s [anti-doping] testing pool, a pre-condition for playing on the pro tours. She is now subject, along with all the other players on the list, to random drug tests as well as the “whereabouts” rule, until the mandatory six-month waiting period to compete again in sanctioned events expires.
If the Bounces report is accurate, Williams has made a serious commitment to resuming her career. Just why the mother of two daughters is returning is anyone’s guess, but potential reasons abound, beginning with the most obvious one: She may entertain dreams of securing that 24th Grand Slam singles title that would put her on even footing with all-time leaders Margaret Court and Novak Djokovic.
We should also note that, since reports of a possible return, Williams has shot down the notion of a comeback.
Williams was never one to ignore unfinished business, and while no woman anywhere near her age has ever won a singles major (Williams already holds the record for oldest women’s major singles champion, having won the 2017 Australian Open at 35), younger women have changed their minds about quitting. It was such an agreeable experience that some did it more than once, including serial retirers Martina Hingis and Kim Clijsters.
Clijsters first retired at 23 in May 2007. She made her Grand Slam breakthrough at the US Open in 2005, following four losses in major finals. But even that could not quell her growing disillusion with the tour, and the daily struggles competing with—and being overshadowed by—the Williams sisters, Hingis and Justine Henin.
When Clijsters returned to the tour in the summer of 2009, now a mother, she promptly won the US Open. She defended the title successfully in 2010, then won the 2011 Australian Open to punctuate her astonishing comeback. Then she retired again, in September of 2012.
That retirement didn’t stick, either. She knocked around without much success until a knee injury and the Covid pandemic convinced her to quit for good in April 2022. She was 38 at the time.