Serena Williams is shutting down any speculation that she’s gearing up for a tennis comeback anytime soon.
After The Athletic and ESPN reported that the 44-year-old tennis icon had taken steps to reenter the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s (ITIA) International Registered Testing Pool — a requirement for active players — headlines exploded and whispers of a return swept across social media. The 23-time Grand Slam champion quickly hopped on X on Tuesday, Dec. 2, to set the record straight.
“Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy-,” she wrote.
Fans flooded her mentions with disappointment, with one user noting the “wildfire” surrounding the rumor “is a reflection of how much people miss you.”
Williams last played professionally at the 2022 U.S. Open, where she exited in the third round after a hard-fought match against Ajla Tomljanović. Earlier that summer, she penned an essay for Vogue revealing that, after nearly 30 years in the sport, she began playing professionally at just 14, she was stepping away to focus on growing her family as a wife and a mom of two, along with expanding her venture capital firm, Serena Ventures. At the time, she made a point to avoid calling it a retirement.
“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,” she wrote.
“There is no happiness in this topic for me,” she explained. “I know it’s not the usual thing to say, but I feel a great deal of pain. It’s the hardest thing that I could ever imagine. I hate it. I hate that I have to be at this crossroads. I keep saying to myself, I wish it could be easy for me, but it’s not. I’m torn: I don’t want it to be over, but at the same time I’m ready for what’s next.”
Since then, Williams hasn’t offered much clarity about whether she’d ever pick up her racket again. Though she’s continued to train casually and has even started teaching her young daughters, she’s largely avoided giving any definitive answers about a possible return. She did, however, have a lighthearted moment during last summer’s U.S. Open, when Venus played in doubles alongside Leylah Fernandez. Serena posted a video of herself making a playful face while watching from home, prompting Venus to jokingly respond, “You need to show up.”
Aside from moments like that, she’s stayed deliberately vague, even as fans continue to hold out hope for one more appearance on court — particularly a reunion with Venus in doubles.
As for whether her recent testing-pool move means anything definitive, that remains unclear. Adrian Bassett, an ITIA spokesperson, told The Athletic that Williams’ reentering the testing pool doesn’t guarantee a return for the 23-time Grand Slam champion. Bassett said he does “not know if this means she is coming back” or if Williams is “just giving herself the option” for a return.
