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 shedding 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 youngster and is taken into account by many the best of all time, revealed on the time she was not making ready for a event 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 enjoying 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 a substitute 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.
“Possibly the most effective phrase to explain what I am as much as is evolution. I am right here to inform you that I am evolving away from tennis, towards different issues which are necessary 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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The ladies’s sport, like Serena, has developed within the 18 months since she departed the scene with Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina creating a brand new ‘Large 4’ and taking ladies’s tennis to new heights.
If Serena had been to make a comeback, she’d ideally have to be 100 per cent match and able to compete in opposition to the perfect.
Her final Grand Slam singles title got here again in 2017 however attempt to attempt as she did, the American couldn’t equal 24-time Grand Slam winner Margaret Courtroom.
Novak Djokovic successful a twenty fourth main title at Roland Garros final 12 months might act as further motivation for Serena, who could properly really feel that her story can nonetheless have a fairy-tale ending.
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A glance again at a few of the most iconic successful moments all through the historical past of the US Open
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