A tale of two Super Bowls for Serena Williams?<\/p>\n
Serena Williams danced at the Super Bowl<\/a> for the second year in a row \u2014 and her appearances told the story of an unfinished reemergence into the tennis world.<\/p>\n At last year\u2019s Super Bowl LIX, the 23-time Grand Slam champion, widely regarded as the greatest women\u2019s player of all time, appeared during Kendrick Lamar\u2019s halftime show performance of \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/p>\n Television cameras twice\u00a0cut to Williams<\/a> crip walking, in a reprise of her dance on Wimbledon\u2019s Centre Court at the London 2012 Olympics, with her appearance part of the 13-year feud between Lamar and rapper Drake.<\/p>\n Though neither has ever publicly confirmed that they dated, Drake claimed that he wrote \u201cToo Good\u201d about Williams in studio footage released in summer 2024. In an interview with Time later in 2025, Williams denied that her appearance was designed to assist Lamar in dissing Drake.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was sad, that anyone would ever think that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This year, Williams appeared on a very different stage in a very different guise: a virtual platform for telehealth company Ro, advertising the effectiveness of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. In the advert, Williams delivered a voiceover saying she is \u201cmoving better\u201d and \u201cfeeling better\u201d thanks to the drugs provided by the company, at one point directly injecting a syringe into her arm. Her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is an investor in Ro and serves on its board.<\/p>\n Williams, 44, first said she was using GLP-1s last summer, in a series of interviews in which she said that she felt joint stress caused by her weight had prevented her from winning as many Grand Slam titles as she might have done. Since then, she has slowly raised the possibility of returning to tennis, while refusing to be drawn on how or when it might happen.<\/p>\n Williams reentered the tennis anti-doping testing pool<\/a>\u00a0last year, but she swiftly denied any return to tennis when that news emerged. Reentering the testing pool requires players to submit their whereabouts for an hour once a day, as well as opening them up to the possibility of random testing.<\/p>\n But this month, Williams changed position, refusing to rule out a comeback<\/a> during an interview with \u201cToday.\u201d Before Williams\u2019 Super Bowl appearance, American player Alycia Parks said she had recently practiced with her.<\/p>\n With Williams yet to be drawn on when she will return, if at all, and whether it will be on the singles court or the doubles court \u2014 the latter almost certainly with her sister Venus \u2014 her change in position at the biggest showcase in American sports is striking. Williams did not explicitly mention tennis, or any sport, in her Super Bowl advert for Ro, but her focus on movement and wellbeing in the context of her softening position on the possibility of a comeback was striking.<\/p>\n \u2026 And another step for Venus?<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Venus Williams<\/a>, the 45-year-old, seven-time Grand Slam<\/a> singles champion, appears determined to keep trying to win tennis matches at an age when most players have long retired. Last summer, Williams won her first singles match<\/a> in two years upon returning to the sport at the D.C. Open, but she has not had a victory since.<\/p>\n Williams has received wild cards for four tournaments since her victory over Peyton Stearns<\/a> last July, including the U.S. Open and the Australian Open<\/a>, but has lost all four matches. She came incredibly close in Melbourne, leading Serbia\u2019s Olga Danilovi\u0107<\/a> 4-0 in the third set of their first-round match before Danilovi\u0107 came back.<\/p>\n Now, Williams is playing a tournament for the first time: the ATX Open in Austin. Last week, organizers announced that Williams will play there later this month in a field that includes world No. 6 Jessica Pegula and world No. 20 Iva Jovi\u0107<\/a>.<\/p>\n Williams and Canada\u2019s Leylah Fernandez won two doubles matches at the U.S. Open<\/a>, and Williams is scheduled to play singles and doubles in Austin, with her partner to be decided.<\/p>\n In a statement released through the tournament, Williams said, \u201cI\u2019m so excited to be heading to Austin and playing my first ATX Open. The city has such great energy, and I\u2019ve heard the fans are incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n Venus may also look across some draws the next few months and find more inspiration. Former world No. 2 Vera Zvonareva, 41, appeared to be at the end of her career when a severe shoulder injury sidelined her between spring 2024 and December 2025. Instead, she has returned to the tour and is into the second round at the Qatar Open after coming through qualifying. Her first-round opponent? None other than Stearns, who is now 0-3 against players aged 37 and older the past eight months.<\/p>\n The big question remains whether her sister, Serena<\/a>, will appear with her one of these days.<\/p>\n A banner weekend for the Davis Cup?<\/p>\n This time last year, the Davis Cup descended into farce and acrimony when Zizou Bergs of Belgium collided with Chile\u2019s Cristian Gar\u00edn<\/a> at a changeover and set off a chain of events that led to Gar\u00edn losing the match after being timed out. Chile\u2019s Olympic committee called it \u201ca shameful international incident.\u201d<\/p>\n There have been no such incidents this year, but there has been plenty of on-court drama that only international team tennis \u2014 with home and away ties, and a slot just after a Grand Slam that sees many nations\u2019 top stars resting \u2014 can provide.<\/p>\n Ecuador leading Australia on home courts in Quito, where the altitude and switch to clay from hard courts confounded James Duckworth and Rinky Hijikata against Alvaro Guillen Meza and Andres Andrade.<\/p>\n Chung Hyeon, the 2018 Australian Open semifinalist who saw Achilles and back injuries derail his career, and Kwon Soon-woo, whose ranking has been depressed by military service that prohibits his playing outside South Korea, stunning Argentina.<\/p>\n Austria and Canada coming from 2-1 down to beat Japan and Brazil, the latter coming from Liam Draxl seeing out a win over Gustavo Heide despite rolling his ankle in the seventh game of the deciding rubber.<\/p>\n Dhakshineswar Suresh Ekambaram, a college tennis star at Wake Forest, leading India to a sensational 3-2 win over the Netherlands, taking the deciding rubber despite a 290-place rankings deficit to opponent Guy den Ouden.<\/p>\n There is some discontent at the top of the sport about how the tennis equivalent of the World Cup platforms its best players come the finals, but the qualifiers are no less dramatic for it.<\/p>\n How did an outspoken player remind the sport of the power of styles?<\/p>\n Oleksandra Oliynykova<\/a>\u2019s powerful news conference and interviews took the limelight at the Australian Open. She first called on the sporting world to protect \u201cwomen and children\u201d in Ukraine from Russia\u2019s invasion, and then criticized Belarusian world No. 1. Aryna Sabalenka, and Russian former world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev<\/a>, for having engaged with or praised state-sponsored activities, or their countries\u2019 leaders.<\/p>\n But before that in Melbourne, and then again last week at the Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Oliynykova\u2019s tennis did the talking. She gave defending champion Madison Keys a fright at the Australian Open, leading 4-0 and 6-5 in the first set of their first-round match. Keys delivered a flurry of winners to steal that set in a tiebreak, before pulling away.<\/p>\n Oliynykova then went to play her first WTA Tour main draw event in Romania, and reached the semifinals playing the same style: a potent mix of changes of paces, angles, at times improbable volleys \u2014 and moonballs.<\/p>\n Despite the long history of elite WTA players mastering the art of the moonball, Caroline Wozniacki and Angelique Kerber chief among them, sending tennis balls into the atmosphere still draws out the sport\u2019s eternal, often cursed relationship between style and ethics. The most aggressive, conventional style should be the winner, because the player deploying it controls the outcome of points; the defender should lose because they do not play the right way, or so the theory goes.<\/p>\n This crystallized most prominently in last year\u2019s French Open women\u2019s final, when Sabalenka initially did not credit Coco Gauff for the win she had built amid swirling wind with a relentless defense.<\/p>\n But part of the reason this debate exists at all is that it works. Oliynykova did not just reach the semifinals at the Transylvania Open \u2014 she gave Emma Raducanu serious fits once there, completely disrupting her rhythm and forcing her to generate huge amounts of pace from deep behind the baseline just to extend rallies in a meaningful way. Oliynykova also threw in drop shots and much faster shots, keeping Raducanu on her heels.<\/p>\n She may have lost the match, but in doing so, it once again proved that styles make fights in tennis \u2014 and should be cherished.<\/p>\n How did a rising WTA phenomenon appear once more?<\/p>\n
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