Photo Credit:Getty Images
Serena Williams is heading back to professional tennis.
Nearly four years after stepping away from the sport, the 23-time Grand Slam champion has confirmed she will return to competition at the Queen's Club Championships in London later this month.
The 44-year-old tennis icon announced the news on June 1 with a social media video showing her practicing on a tennis court while her phone buzzed with constant notifications. Text appearing on the screen read, "Guess everybody heard the news," before Williams jokingly added, "I've got to change my number."
She captioned the post, "Good news travels fast."
Tournament organizers also celebrated the announcement, revealing that Williams will compete in the doubles event at the HSBC Championships, a key grass-court tournament held ahead of Wimbledon.
Her return marks her first professional appearance since the 2022 U.S. Open, where she played what was widely believed to be the final event of her career. At the time, Williams resisted describing her departure from tennis as retirement.
"I have never liked the word retirement," she told Vogue in 2022. "It doesn't feel like a modern word to me."
Instead, she described the next chapter of her life as an "evolution," explaining, "Maybe the best word to describe what I'm up to is evolution. I'm here to tell you that I'm evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me."
Since then, Williams has focused on family life and business ventures. She and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, share two daughters, Olympia and Adira, who was born in 2023.
Despite embracing life away from the court, Williams previously admitted that leaving tennis had not been easy. Speaking in 2023, she acknowledged feeling torn because she still believed she could compete at the highest level.
"I think I feel torn because I'm still able to play at a very, very, very high level," she said at the time. "I always wanted to leave the game playing at a very high level."
Rumors of a comeback have circulated for months, especially after Williams was reportedly re-entered into the sport's anti-doping testing program. However, she dismissed speculation late last year, writing on social media, "Omg yall I'm NOT coming back."
Now, fans have their answer.
