{"id":442097,"date":"2026-02-24T00:47:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/442097\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T00:47:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:47:22","slug":"serena-williams-ex-coach-sure-of-her-making-tennis-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/442097\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams’ ex-coach sure of her making tennis return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Serena Williams’ former coach Rick Macci believes the 23-time Grand Slam champion is \u2060certain to return to competitive tennis and said the 44-year-old is “going all out” in training to get herself ready \u200cfor a return to the sport.<\/p>\n

Williams<\/a>, who won her last Grand Slam singles \u200ctitle in 2017 and has not competed since the \u200c2022 US Open, can officially enter tournaments after rejoining the tennis \u200canti-doping testing pool last year.<\/p>\n

The American has denied that she \u200cis preparing to return to the sport she dominated for two decades, but raised eyebrows last month by deflecting questions about a comeback \u200cduring an appearance on NBC’s Today Show.<\/p>\n

Macci, \u2060who previously coached Williams and \u200cher sister Venus in the early 1990s, told French publication L’Equipe \u200bthat he believed she is preparing for a comeback.<\/p>\n

“She’s training with lots of sparring partners – guys,” he said. “She’s \u200balso played with Alycia Parks<\/a>, a good friend of hers in South Florida. So I have no doubt about it (her \u2060comeback). <\/p>\n

“I always thought \u200bshe would come back from time to time to make appearances with Venus in doubles, but we’re not just talking about doubles here… she’s going all out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If she didn’t think she could \u200ccompete with the best and win matches, she wouldn’t do it. It’s 100 per cent certain she’ll dive back into competition.”<\/p>\n

Macci, 71, had no doubts about Williams’ ability to handle the rigours of the tour.<\/p>\n

“The question is whether that competitive spirit is still there,” he added. “She’s answering that question herself: she’s coming back because she is a competitor at heart.”<\/p>\n

Williams said in August 2022 that she was “evolving away from tennis” and her \u200cteam has not responded to Reuters requests for comment on her \u200bpotential comeback.<\/p>\n

Macci suggested that Williams could use Indian Wells \u200cor the Miami Open to launch her comeback next month.<\/p>\n

“It’ll be interesting to see how fit she is,” he added.<\/p>\n

“Making an appearance, playing an exhibition match or a match is one thing. Doing it again the next day \u2060and the day after \u2060that, and performing well day \u200cafter day is another.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams’ former coach Rick Macci believes the 23-time Grand Slam champion is \u2060certain to return to competitive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-442097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}