Serena Williams Eligible to Make Pro Tennis Return This Month

Serena Williams can return to tennis in less than two weeks.

The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion will be eligible to play professional tennis starting Feb. 22, according to an updated list of reinstated players published Monday by the International Tennis Integrity Association, the sport’s drug testing organization. 

The eligibility date is six months after Williams re-entered the drug testing pool, the ITIA’s requirement before reinstatement. Williams, 44, has yet to officially announce whether she will return.

Williams’s potential return was first reported in early December by tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg, who indicated that Williams re-entered her name in the ITIA’s drug testing pool.   She immediately denied the report hours later: “Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy.” 

But she did not give firm denial during a late January interview on the Today show.

“That’s not a yes or no. I don’t know. I’m just gonna see what happens,” Williams said. She dodged additional questions from Savannah Guthrie before saying she “can’t discuss” the matter.

Williams’s agent did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Williams, considered the greatest women’s tennis player of all time, stepped away from tennis after the 2022 US Open, less than a month before turning 41. While many considered it Williams’s tennis retirement, she did not use the term “retire,” instead she said she was “evolving away” from tennis to focus on her family and her health. In a piece for Vogue at the time, Williams said, “I showed up 23 times, and that’s fine. Actually it’s extraordinary. But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter.”

Recently, Williams has been the face of GLP-1 medications for Ro, a telehealth company her husband Alexis Ohanian is an investor in. The World Anti-Doping Agency has begun conducting research on the impact semaglutide medications like Wegovy and Ozempic have on athletes, and they have been on the agency’s monitoring list since 2024. The ITIA prohibits substances based on WADA’s list.

The timing of Williams’s reinstated eligibility means she could compete at the Sunshine Double, a pair of WTA 1000 events held in the U.S in March. The BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif., runs from March 4-15, while the Miami Open runs from March 18-29.

Williams could make her return even sooner at the ATX Open in Austin. The WTA 250 women’s only tournament starts on Feb. 23. Serena’s older sister, Venus, received a wildcard entry to the tournament and will participate in both the singles and doubles competition.

Venus Williams has yet to announce a doubles partner.