Three years after announcing her retirement, Serena Williams is rumored to be getting back into tennis. According to The Athletic, Williams requested to reenter the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA)’s International Registered Testing Pool, a requirement for active players. “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,” Adrian Bassett, a spokesperson for the ITIA, told the outlet on Tuesday.
Fans seemed very excited at the thought of the greatest women’s tennis player of all time returning to the court, but shortly after the story was published, Williams set the record straight. “Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy-,” she wrote on X. Still, Williams did not offer an explanation as to why she’s now following the whereabouts rules, which say she has to remain in a certain place for an hour a day, every day, and allow the ITIA to randomly drug test her, per The Athletic.
Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy-
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) December 2, 2025
While this doesn’t necessarily mean she’s an active player, plenty of professional athletes have returned to their sport after retiring — Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, and Michael Phelps, to name a few. It’s quite possible for Williams to join them, but she also mentioned Brady when she announced she was “evolving away” from the sport in 2022 to prioritize her family. “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,” she wrote in Vogue. “Maybe I’d be more of a Tom Brady if I had that opportunity.”
So, is Williams looking to win her 24th Grand Slam title or another Olympic gold? Who’s to say — but she is giving herself the option.
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