Serena Williams, the greatest women’s tennis player of all time, has taken a required step toward any sensational return to professional tennis.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion, who last played in 2022 and avoided using the word “retirement” in announcing her “evolving away” from the sport, has informed the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) that she wishes to reenter the sport’s International Registered Testing Pool.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHer name appears on an updated list of players in that pool, dated October 6 this year.
“She has notified us that she wants to be reinstated into the testing pool,” Adrian Bassett, a spokesperson for the ITIA, said in a text message Tuesday.
“I do not know if this means she is coming back, or just giving herself the option. All I can say is she’s back in the pool and therefore subject to whereabouts.”
A spokesperson for Williams, 44, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The testing pool does not encompass every active player, even though every active player is subject to out-of-competition testing.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementInstead it is mostly comprised of the top 100 men’s and women’s singles players, elite doubles and wheelchair players, and players wishing to return to competition after a long hiatus. Players in the pool have to provide their whereabouts at a given time every day of the year, and anyone who reenters has to be in the pool for six months before playing a tournament.
Officials with the WTA Tour and the United States Tennis Association, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on their organization’s behalf, said that they were unaware that Williams had re-entered the testing pool.
The mostly likely venue for Williams to appear would be the U.S. Open mixed doubles tournament, which has become a star-studded, two-day event open to wild-card pairings from all over the tennis galaxy. She was one of the best doubles players of the modern era too, winning 14 Grand Slam titles and three Olympic gold medals with her sister, Venus, 45, who is still competing.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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