Whether Serena Williams returns or not, interest and debate will follow

We should have seen this coming.

Serena Williams pointedly declined to use any form of the verb “to retire” following her last official WTA match, at the 2022 US Open. Instead, the then-41-year old legend claimed she had “evolved away from tennis.” If a report in the Substack Bounces is accurate, she is evolving right back into it.

According to author Ben Rothenberg, at some point in recent months Williams reapplied to be on the list of players who are in the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s [anti-doping] testing pool, a pre-condition for playing on the pro tours. She is now subject, along with all the other players on the list, to random drug tests as well as the “whereabouts” rule, until the mandatory six-month waiting period to compete again in sanctioned events expires.

If the Bounces report is accurate, Williams has made a serious commitment to resuming her career. Just why the mother of two daughters is returning is anyone’s guess, but potential reasons abound, beginning with the most obvious one: She may entertain dreams of securing that 24th Grand Slam singles title that would put her on even footing with all-time leaders Margaret Court and Novak Djokovic.

We should also note that, since reports of a possible return, Williams has shot down the notion of a comeback.

Williams was never one to ignore unfinished business, and while no woman anywhere near her age has ever won a singles major (Williams already holds the record for oldest women’s major singles champion, having won the 2017 Australian Open at 35), younger women have changed their minds about quitting. It was such an agreeable experience that some did it more than once, including serial retirers Martina Hingis and Kim Clijsters.

Clijsters first retired at 23 in May 2007. She made her Grand Slam breakthrough at the US Open in 2005, following four losses in major finals. But even that could not quell her growing disillusion with the tour, and the daily struggles competing with—and being overshadowed by—the Williams sisters, Hingis and Justine Henin.

When Clijsters returned to the tour in the summer of 2009, now a mother, she promptly won the US Open. She defended the title successfully in 2010, then won the 2011 Australian Open to punctuate her astonishing comeback. Then she retired again, in September of 2012.

That retirement didn’t stick, either. She knocked around without much success until a knee injury and the Covid pandemic convinced her to quit for good in April 2022. She was 38 at the time.

Two other former Grand Slam champions also came out of retirement in hopes of recapturing the magic: Hingis and Henin. The former, a sensational Swiss prodigy, came within one match of sweeping all four majors during the same year (1997) she would turn 17. Hingis was a jaded 22-year old veteran of 12 Grand Slam singles finals (she won five of them) when she retired for the first time in 2003.

A bright, complex bantamweight who flourished despite the rising tide of power tennis personified by the likes of the Williams sisters and Maria Sharapova, Hingis returned in 2006, driven by “curiosity” about how her game would hold up in the new era. Evidently, the answer was “not very well.” She retired a second time in less than a year. Hingis made another return in 2013, and created a brand-new career—and identity—as a No. 1 ranked doubles specialist.

Henin was that rare athlete who stepped away while on top. She was just 25 when she pulled the plug, already a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion and coming off a stretch in which she played the final in seven of her eight previous majors. She was ranked No. 1, but with a physique that bordered on the frail, Henin was just plain worn out.

Henin returned in 2010 and made the Australian Open final (she lost to Serena Williams in three tough sets), but she played only three more majors before a debilitating elbow injury led her to retire for good.

There are points of commonality in the stories of those three women, but Serena Williams shares none of them, other than the great success they’ve all enjoyed. Williams practically had to be dragged off the court in 2022. There was none of the “unfinished business” Henin cited in her un-retirement (for the Belgian stylist, that meant winning a Wimbledon title). And Williams certainly is old enough to be immune to the feeling that she packed it in too early, too young.

One factor that must play some role in Williams’ calculations is her sister Venus’ continuing appetite for the sport. One of the greatest doubles teams of all time, the Williams sisters could light up the tennis landscape once again. Age is kind to doubles players. Does anyone doubt that the sisters, triumphant in three Olympic Games and 14 Grand Slam doubles finals, could add to their haul?

But there’s another intriguing element here, which is Serena’s fitness. Late in her career she seemed to be hampered by it, but under a new regimen, Williams is more focused on nutrition and ramping up her training, including preparations to run a half-marathon.

There is one enormous caveat, though. Serena has lost 31 pounds (a figure she told People) with the help of a GLP-1 drug, Zepbound. She has touted the weight-loss drug widely, and is a de facto spokeswoman for Ro, the telehealth company that is in league with the manufacturer of Zepbound. Alexis Ohanian, Williams’ husband, sits on Ro’s board of directors.

Clearly, a return by Williams, made possible—and perhaps even successful—by a wonder drug would be a sensational story, and an enormous marketing coup for the manufacturer. But beyond that, there is also this little issue of doping protocols.

GLP-1s have not been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and, at least for 2026, they are absent from its list of prohibited substances. However, the drugs are now in WADA’s “monitoring program.” WADA researchers are studying their usage and the effects they have, which could change the agency’s stance toward the drugs.

Like all things Serena, a potential comeback is likely to generate a great amount of interest and debate. That we do see coming.