Serena Williams shuts down return to tennis after reentering anti-doping test pool
Serena Williams has refuted claims she is considering a return to professional tennis.
After The Athletic reported Tuesday that Williams’s name appeared again on the most recent list of players on the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s (ITIA) registered testing pool, the former tennis pro was forced to address return rumors.
“Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy-,” Williams posted on X hours after the report ran.
She did not clarify in the post whether or not her name was on the list. Names on the ITIA testing pool must also provide their location on any given day and time while participating in random drug testing.
The Independent has reached out to representatives for Williams for comment.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion announced in a 2022 personal essay published in Vogue that she would be retiring from tennis after that year’s U.S. Open to focus on her family with her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
“Believe me, I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family,” she wrote at the time. “I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labour of expanding our family.”
“Don’t get me wrong: I love being a woman and I loved every second of being pregnant with Olympia… But I’m turning 41 this month and something’s got to give.”
Elsewhere in the op-ed, Williams opened up about not liking to use the word “retirement.”
“It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me… Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution,” she wrote. “I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”
More to follow
