Serena Williams has opened the door to a comeback.
Williams has rejoined the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s doping pool, a requirement for her to participate in sanctioned tournaments. Her name appears on the latest list of players who are in the International Registered Testing Pool, which was updated Oct. 6.
Williams has to be in the testing pool for six months before she would be eligible to play again.
Williams’ reentry to the doping pool was first reported by The Athletic.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion has not played since the 2022 U.S. Open. She announced in August of that year that she was ‘evolving’ away from tennis, in part because she and husband Alexis Ohanian wanted to have more children.
‘Believe me, I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair,’ Williams wrote in an Aug. 9, 2022, essay in Vogue. ‘But I’m turning 41 this month, and something’s got to give.’
Williams had her second daughter, Adira, in August 2023.
Williams revealed in August that she had lost 31 pounds after going on a GLP-1 drug, and credited the medication with finally helping relieve the joint pain she’d had since having her first daughter, Olympia, in September 2017.
‘I had a lot of knee issues,’ Williams said during an appearance on the ‘Today’ show. ‘Especially after I had my kid (and) was never able to get to my normal levels of weight. And that, quite frankly, definitely had an effect on maybe some wins that I could have had in my career.’
Williams has immersed herself in various business ventures since stepping away from tennis. In an interview with Porter magazine, published Monday, she said not playing tennis was still ‘difficult,’ but she missed it less than she once had.
‘Not as much as this time last year,” she told the magazine. “No matter how prepared you are to retire, and particularly from doing something every day at such a high level, it’s hard. I really prepped myself the best way I could, but it’s something that’s still a little difficult.”