Serena Williams Is Making Her Triumphant Return to Tennis
She will hit the court for the first time in nearly four years
Reported by Harper's Bazaar.
Serena Williams isn't retiring — she never really was. Nearly four years after stepping back from professional tennis to focus on her family, Williams announced her return this week via a co-branded video with longtime sponsor Nike. In it, she's hitting on a ball-strewn court when her phone starts ringing off the hook. Her response? "I gotta change my number." Understated, funny, and completely on-brand for someone who has never needed a dramatic entrance.
The comeback is official: Williams is set to play doubles at the HSBC Championships at Queen's Club in London next week. "Queen's Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter," she said in a statement. "Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career." That's not hyperbole — it's just her record. According to Harper's Bazaar, Williams currently holds 23 major singles titles, 73 career singles titles, 14 major doubles titles alongside her sister Venus, and four Olympic gold medals. She won her first Grand Slam at the 1999 US Open and spent the following two decades redefining what excellence in women's sport looks like.
She Never Really Left
In August 2022, Williams wrote an emotional essay for Vogue about moving away from tennis to prioritize motherhood — she's now mom to eight-year-old Alexis Olympia and two-year-old Adira River. "I've been reluctant to admit that I have to move on from playing tennis. It comes up, and I start to cry," she wrote. But just one month later, while promoting her investment firm Serena Ventures at a San Francisco conference, she walked it back without missing a beat: "I am not retired." She even offered up her home court as evidence.
What the HSBC Championships represents beyond this one doubles match remains to be seen — there's no confirmed tournament schedule beyond London. But the reappearance itself says something. Williams didn't come back with a press tour or a brand refresh. She came back with a racket, a Nike collab, and a joke about changing her phone number. Whether this is a one-off or the opening of something bigger, she's made it clear that she gets to define what "stepping away" means — and apparently, it doesn't mean gone.
Serena Williams deciding when, how, and on what terms she returns to the sport she built is the only retirement story worth following.
Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.
