Nearly four years after giving up tennis to concentrate on her "evolution," Serena Williams has revealed that she is returning to the game.
Serena Williams has returned. The 23-time Grand Slam champion declared on June 1 that she will play competitively again in the Queen's Club Championship in London later this month, four years after announcing her retirement from the professional tennis tournament.
The 44-year-old, who is married to Alexis Ohanian and has two children, Olympia, 8, and Adira, 2, posted a picture of herself on a tennis court on social media while her phone erupted in alerts.
“Guess everybody heard the news,” as Serena humorously adds, a line of text appears over the footage. “I’ve got to change my number.”
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"Good news travels fast" was Serena's caption for the video, which she published together with Nike.
Serena acknowledged that something "had to give" in order to balance playing with raising her family, which is why she is returning to her sport. Even though she acknowledged that she was retiring in August 2022, she resisted retirement story.
“I have never liked the word retirement,” at that moment, Serena informed Vogue. “It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution.”
In fact, the athlete had previously admitted that she was drawn back to the sport even after retiring.
“It’s interesting,” in 2023, she informed media outlets. “I think I feel torn because I'm still able to play at a very, very, very high level. With that being said, I always wanted to leave the game playing at a very high level. But it's hard because it's like, 'Oh my gosh, I could still play, and I could still do all that stuff.’”
She could, and she will now as she returns—but she has also managed to strike a balance between her personal and professional lives.
“I've been playing tennis for literally, literally my entire life,” at the time, she gave an explanation to media outlets. “My entire being and knowing is just what I've done. So now, I'm inch by inch finding my way. Obviously, I love other businesses that I've done. But just inch by inch leaning into that and leaning into my family and leaning into just having fun. I think it's so important to do all those and still create that balance.”