{"id":807464,"date":"2026-10-19T10:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T10:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/807464\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T10:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T10:30:15","slug":"tennis-news-2026-ash-barty-nominated-for-hall-of-fame-serena-williams-omitted-after-comeback-social-media-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/807464\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis news 2026: Ash Barty nominated for Hall of Fame, Serena Williams omitted after comeback, social media reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian tennis<\/a> legend Ash Barty<\/a> has been nominated for the sport\u2019s Hall of Fame, but it has been overshadowed by a surprise omission.<\/p>\n

The three-time grand slam winner retired four years ago, despite being ranked No.1 in the world at the time and still just 25 years old. <\/p>\n

\"Ash<\/p>\n

Ash Barty.\u00a0Darrian Traynor via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Barty, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Juan Mart\u00edn del Potro have all been named in the ballot for the 2027 class, but one notable name not included is Serena Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite seemingly fitting the criteria, Williams \u2013 widely regarded as the greatest female player of the modern era \u2013 missed out for next year\u2019s class.<\/p>\n

Under the rules, players must not be a \u201csignificant factor\u201d on the ATP or WTA tour for five calendar years. Williams retired in 2022, but returned at Wimbledon this year<\/a> where she injured her knee in a first round loss to Australian Maya Joint. That brief return is unlikely to tick the \u201csignificant factor\u201d box, but there is still a chance she will continue playing next year.<\/p>\n

Tennis journalist Jon Wertheim raised a few theories as to why the American legend wasn\u2019t named alongside some of her peers.<\/p>\n

He described the omission of Williams as \u201creal drama\u201d.<\/p>\n

Williams won 23 grand slam titles during her career and would be a shoo-in for the prestigious honour, but her recent comeback could mean she has to wait until 2031 to be nominated or inducted for the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

The 45-year-old has only played five official matches this year, with two of them coming at major events at Wimbledon and the US Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian tennis legend Ash Barty has been nominated for the sport\u2019s Hall of Fame, but it has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-807464","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\/807464","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=807464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}