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 — who retired in 2022 — 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, nor why it would be.
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 labor 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 at the time. “I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”
The sports great also wrote candidly about how painful the thought of retiring is to her, adding that it was the “hardest thing that I could ever imagine.”
“I hate it. I hate that I have to be at this crossroads… But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis resume and building my family, I choose the latter.”
Williams has won seven Wimbledon titles, seven Australian Opens, six U.S. Opens, and three French Opens. She also holds four Olympic gold medals. Together with her older sister, Venus Williams, they have dominated tennis for the large part of the last 25 years.
Fans were disappointed to see Williams shoot down a potential return to the tennis circuit, as many commented under her X post that they hope she changes her mind and does eventually come back.
“And that’s for you to believe but i know you got another grand slam up in there,” one person on X wrote, while another agreed, writing, “You got our hopes up there for a minute.”
“Why not? We love you,” a third person wrote.
