Breaking: Serena Williams Is Preparing to Return to Tennis
The 23-time major singles champion has filed paperwork that sets a 2026 comeback to professional tennis in motion.
Some big news to report here at Bounces:
Serena Williams, whose 23 major singles titles are the most in the history of women’s professional tennis, is setting herself up for a return to official tennis competition in 2026.
Serena, 44, last played at the 2022 U.S. Open, where she won two rounds—including a second round win over No. 2 Anett Kontaveit—before losing in the third round to Ajla Tomljanovic.
That loss to Tomljanovic was on September 2, 2022; just one day later, September 3, 2022, Serena applied for official retirement with the International tennis Integrity Agency, meaning that she would no longer have to provide her daily whereabouts for random drug testing.
As stated on the ITIA website’s list of retired players:
“The players listed here have declared themselves retired from the sport and may not return to sanctioned events unless they have made themselves available for out-of-competition testing for at least six months prior to the event in question.”
Serena’s name still appears on that list of retired players, and does not yet appear on the list of reinstated players. But names only appear on that ITIA reinstatements list once their six months back on the testing pool have been completed, not when the six months are still ongoing.
Unless she changes her mind, Serena’s name will appear on that reinstated list soon. More than three years after her last match, Bounces can report that, within the last few months, Serena has applied for reinstatement to tennis and has been added back into the testing pool.
Bounces can also exclusively report that Serena explored the possibility of a comeback even sooner. Serena had first sought reinstatement this past August, weeks before this year’s U.S. Open, likely to play doubles in New York with her sister, Venus. But such short-notice spontaneous comebacks by officially retired players are not permitted; some may remember when the retired Andy Roddick’s attempted comeback for doubles at the 2014 U.S. Open with his buddy Mardy Fish was similarly dashed because of testing pool reasons.
Unlike Serena, Venus, 45, had never officially retired, allowing her to make a somewhat unexpected return to tour last summer. Coming back from a 16-month absence in Washington in July, Venus won her first singles match against 35th-ranked Peyton Stearns.
In New York, Venus pushed two-time U.S. Open semifinalist Karolina Muchova to a third set in their first round match, then made a run to the women’s doubles quarterfinals with Leylah Fernandez.
Serena wasn’t eligible to play with Venus at that event, but will now be able to return to tournament play with her sister—or with any other partner, or in singles—by next spring.
It is not yet clear on which date Serena’s reinstatement request was officially filed, but she did reappear, after a years-long absence, on an October 2025 document listing the players who are in the ITIA’s registered testing pool.
Since she’s been in the testing pool since at least October 2025, Serena is on track to be eligible to return again by April 2026 at the latest. (A message to the ITIA seeking clarification of Serena’s exact reinstatement timeline was not returned before publication.)
What Serena’s hopes or goals are for this comeback are not yet known (a call and message to Williams’s agent, Jill Smoller, were not returned before initial publication of this story).
Maybe Serena wants to make one more push for that elusive 24th major singles title? Maybe she just wants to have the freedom to be able to play again if ever the mood strikes her?
Two more questions that Serena’s apparent comeback raises:
Bounces readers may remember that I had teased “rumors” of Serena’s comeback when discussing her likely 2027 International Tennis Hall of Fame induction (and I had indeed been hearing buzz about this for a couple months now). Would a comeback delay her enshrinement? It would depend on what her return looks like by late 2026, i.e. if the Hall determines that she made herself a “significant factor” in tennis again in 2026.
Secondly, about Serena’s very public usage of the GLP-1 drug Zepbound, which she has touted for helping her lose weight in her role as a ubiquitous spokeswoman for the telehealth company Ro (her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is a Ro board member).
GLP-1s have not been banned by WADA, and were not included on the 2026 list of prohibited substances which was finalized a couple months ago. However, GLP-1 drugs have been included in WADA’s “monitoring program,” meaning their usages and effects are still being observed by WADA scientists, and so their status could change in the future.
Update at 3:30 pm: Serena has tweeted about this report—and the bevy of reports from other outlets that followed—denying a planned return to the tour:
“Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy-”
This reporting may have come out before Serena wanted or expected the news to surface, but she absolutely must have had some inclination to return to tennis to have put herself back in the testing pool. Reentering the whereabouts program—a daily tedium requiring constant updating of a person’s location for an hour each day—is not something anyone would ever do simply for fun.
Bounces will continue updating this story as more information comes to light. For updates in your inbox, and all the other tennis reporting here, please do subscribe to Bounces! -Ben
Bounces subscriptions make great gifts for the tennis fan on your holiday shopping list!
Terrific journalism, Ben. Well done!
If she wants to come back because she misses competition, that’s fine but if she expects to come back and win number 24, she will be in for a rude awakening. She had several chances to do that when she was younger and couldn’t do that. She’s now several years older playing against players who are younger, faster and better.