Serena Williams insists I’m NOT coming back

Tennis great Serena Williams took to X on Tuesday to insist that she is just not planning a return to the court, hours after news broke that she has re-entered the game’s drug-testing pool.

“Omg yall I’m NOT coming back,” the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion wrote. “This wildfire is crazy-”

Williams performed her last match on Sept. 2, 2002, a loss to Australian Ajla Tomljanovic in the third spherical of the U.S. Open. The next day, Williams registered as retired with the International Tennis Integrity Agency, which oversees anti-doping and anti-corruption efforts in the game, which means she was no longer subject to common drug testing.

An ITIA spokesperson confirmed to The Times on Tuesday that Williams is back in the company’s drug-testing pool. Retired gamers “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,” according to the ITIA web site.

That is why speak of a potential Williams comeback was spreading like “wildfire” before the 44-year-old tried to extinguish the flames on X. The mom of two didn’t clarify why she is back in the testing pool. A consultant for Williams didn’t immediately reply to a request for remark from The Times.

Williams famously averted the phrase “retirement” when she announced her plan to step away from tennis in an August 2022 column in Vogue.

“Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution,” she said. “I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

Older sister Venus Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam champion, returned to the court earlier this yr after a prolonged hiatus. During her run to the U.S. Open girls’s doubles quarterfinals with companion Leylah Fernandez, Venus Williams talked about that her sister was “coaching from afar.”