received a four-year ban<\/a> for refusing to take a test when a doping control officer showed up at her home outside of the one-hour window she had specified for when she would be available for a drug test.<\/p>\n\u201cI hate it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Williams said the drug-testing requirements were a major reason she resisted coming back after she played what she thought was her final match and tournament four years ago at the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy life is busy, I run a company, I run a VC company. I travel the world,\u201d she said. \u201cI have children, so it\u2019s like I could be in so many different cities, so many different times, but just getting that discipline of like reporting, obviously, I don\u2019t mind because I love, I always have been very clear about what I do.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut just getting in that routine of like, all right, first of all, learning the new rules, and then just like getting back and like reporting every day. I guess now for 24 hours where I\u2019m going to be it\u2019s just different, at least for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
That whereabouts reporting is for one hour per day, rather than all 24 hours of that day.<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019s comments show how even the best players in the world, with access to the most expensive representatives and advisors, aren\u2019t always clear about what the anti-doping rules are.<\/p>\n
Regardless, she has set her questions and her reservations aside to give tennis another go and see what she might have left, though she hesitated in accepting a wild card for singles until Sunday, the day before the deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, not every day Wimbledon holds a wild card for someone,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought, well, I should really take this opportunity. Who knows if I\u2019ll ever make it here again, this could be it, you know, and so, I\u2019m just like, what am I, what, what, what\u2019s wrong with me, Serena? What are you thinking? Like, are you, are you nuts? Like, you really should do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams will play Maya Joint, a 20-year-old talent who represents Australia but has struggled this season, on Centre Court Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople live to be an athlete, and I had this great opportunity to showcase what I do, what I do best, I suppose. I think ultimately, I was like, that is pretty cool, so I should do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Serena Williams did not miss her life as a professional tennis player, she wouldn\u2019t be at Wimbledon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,9045,82,593],"class_list":["post-767154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-global-sports","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767154","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=767154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}