Tennis nice Serena Williams has hinted at a comeback 18 months after “evolving away from tennis” saying on social media that she is “ready to hit some balls again”.
Williams, 42, stated she was “evolving away from tennis” in an essay to Vogue journal in 2022, and, whereas she didn’t verify the US Open as her farewell occasion, she was given lavish tributes earlier than every match in New York and waved an emotional goodbye after dropping within the third spherical to Ajla Tomljanovic.
“I am not retired,” Williams stated at a convention in San Francisco whereas selling her funding firm, Serena Ventures in October 2022. “The chances (of a return) are very high. You can come to my house, I have a court.”
The 23-time Grand Slam champion, who took the tennis world by storm as a young person and is taken into account by many the best of all time, revealed on the time she was not making ready for a match after the US Open didn’t really feel pure to her.
“I still haven’t really thought about (retirement),” she stated. “However I did get up the opposite day and go on the court docket and (thought of) for the primary time in my life that I am not taking part in for a contest, and it felt actually bizarre.
“It was like the first day of the rest of my life and I’m enjoying it, but I’m still trying to find that balance.”
Williams has been cautious to not say the R-word, as an alternative asserting she was “evolving” away from tennis.
“I have never liked the word retirement. It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me,” Williams wrote in Vogue in August.
“I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people.
“Perhaps the perfect phrase to explain what I am as much as is evolution. I am right here to let you know that I am evolving away from tennis, towards different issues which can be essential to me.”
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Billie Jean King, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Andy Murray and Todd Martin talk about Serena Williams’ legacy each on and off the court docket
Is a Serena comeback too late?
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A glance again on the most memorable moments from Venus and Serena Williams’ careers on the US Open
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The ladies’s sport, like Serena, has advanced within the 18 months since she departed the scene with Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina creating a brand new ‘Huge 4’ and taking ladies’s tennis to new heights.
If Serena have been to make a comeback, she’d ideally have to be 100 per cent match and able to compete towards the perfect.
Her final Grand Slam singles title got here again in 2017 however try to attempt as she did, the American couldn’t equal 24-time Grand Slam winner Margaret Court docket.
Novak Djokovic successful a twenty fourth main title at Roland Garros final 12 months may act as additional motivation for Serena, who might properly really feel that her story can nonetheless have a fairy-tale ending.
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A glance again at a number of the most iconic successful moments all through the historical past of the US Open
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