{"id":251260,"date":"2026-06-01T19:47:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/251260\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T19:47:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:47:26","slug":"serena-williams-finally-makes-it-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/251260\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams Finally Makes It Official"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PARIS, France \u2014 As I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/p\/serena-williams-comeback-schedule-grass-queens-club-wimbledon-us-open\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported overnight at <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/p\/serena-williams-comeback-schedule-grass-queens-club-wimbledon-us-open\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bounces<\/a>, an official announcement of 44-year-old Serena Williams\u2019 comeback to professional tennis\u2014something I first reported was coming at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/p\/serena-williams-comeback-retirement-testing-2026-news-date\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bounces<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/p\/serena-williams-comeback-retirement-testing-2026-news-date\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> way back in December<\/a>\u2014was \u201cexpected within days\u2014if not hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The announcement ultimately landed just over 13 hours after my report, with Serena, the WTA, and the WTA 500 Queen\u2019s Club event all simultaneously announcing the 23-time major singles champion\u2019s return to the tour next week, for a doubles wild card.<\/p>\n<p>To read the rest of this report, including all the breaking news, analysis of how the comeback affects Serena\u2019s Hall of Fame eligibility, and the tricky question of her GLP-1 weight loss spokeswoman role in the context of her return, please subscribe to Bounces! It\u2019s still 15 percent off during the French Open! -Ben<\/p>\n<p data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?coupon=b87feeef&amp;utm_content=200131254&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;15% Off During 2026 French Open!&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:&quot;button-wrapper&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\" class=\"button-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?coupon=b87feeef&amp;utm_content=200131254\" class=\"button primary button-wrapper\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">15% Off During 2026 French Open!<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?coupon=b87feeef&amp;utm_content=200131254&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;15% Off During 2026 French Open!&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:&quot;button-wrapper&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\" class=\"button-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?coupon=b87feeef&amp;utm_content=200131254\" class=\"button primary button-wrapper\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">15% Off During 2026 French Open!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS, France \u2014 As I reported overnight at Bounces, an official announcement of 44-year-old Serena Williams\u2019 comeback to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-251260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}