Serena Williams\u00a0threw cold water on the idea that she might be preparing to return to tennis, writing on social media Tuesday that she is \u201cNOT coming back,\u201d after a spokesman for the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) said the\u00a023-time Grand Slam champion\u00a0had registered with the sport’s drug-testing body.<\/p>\n
That is the first step that would be required by a player seeking to come out of retirement.<\/p>\n
The 44-year-old Williams, one of the greats of the game, has not competed\u00a0since bidding farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open. At the time, Williams said she didn’t want to use the word \u201cretiring\u201d and instead declared that she was \u201cevolving\u201d away from tennis.<\/p>\n
It was not clear when or where \u2014 or even if \u2014\u00a0Williams actually will play again, and she later posted: \u201cOmg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her agent did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n
In a statement emailed to The Associated Press, U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Brendan McIntyre said: \u201cWe are aware that Serena has filed the necessary paperwork with the International Tennis Integrity Agency to reenter the International Registered Testing Pool. If Serena decides to return and compete at the professional level, together with her fans, we will enthusiastically welcome the return of one of the greatest champions in the history of our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams was\u00a0one of the biggest stars of any sport, a dominant talent on the court and still someone drawing attention away from it. If she were to end up returning to the tour, it would be a significant story line, of course.<\/p>\n
Her decision to place her name back in the testing pool with the ITIA, which oversees anti-doping and anti-corruption efforts, was first reported by Bounces.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is on the list and back in the testing pool,\u201d ITIA spokesman Adrian Bassett wrote to the AP on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Athletes returning to testing need to provide information on their whereabouts \u2014 details on their location when they are not at an official event and times when they are available to give samples. Someone who retires while they are on the list and later comes back needs to be available for testing for six months before they are allowed to return to competition.<\/p>\n
Williams’ older sister, Venus, returned to competition this July at age 45 after nearly 1 1\/2 years away from the tour; she never had announced her retirement. At the U.S. Open, Venus became the oldest player to play singles at the American Grand Slam tournament since 1981.<\/p>\n
When Venus, a seven-time major singles champion, came back at the DC Open,\u00a0she spoke about wishing Serena would join her back on tour. They claimed 14 Grand Slam doubles titles as a pair.<\/p>\n
\u201cI keep saying to my team: The only thing that would make this better is if she was here. Like, we always did everything together, so of course I miss her,\u201d Venus said at the time when asked about a video on social media that showed Serena swinging a racket. \u201cBut if she comes back, I\u2019m sure she\u2019ll let y\u2019all know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams\u00a0threw cold water on the idea that she might be preparing to return to tennis, writing on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-322774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}