Serena Williams is returning to professional tennis at age 44, ready to step back onto the grass courts this summer. But this is not about the intense title chase for the 23-time Grand Slam champion. Amid the questions of whether she will play singles, Williams cleared the air about the real reason she chose to return to the court that gave her legendary memories.
Serena Williams Reveals the Real Reason Behind Her Surprise Tennis Comeback
Williams stepped away from the sport following the 2022 US Open, where she played her final singles match and a tearful final doubles match alongside her sister Venus. For the last four years, she maintained that the competitive playing days were behind her. Even in December 2025, she insisted a return was entirely off the table.
However, rumors began circulating later when she re-entered the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s (ITIA) registered drug-testing pool, which is mandatory for players before competing. And a week ago, she confirmed her return in an Instagram post with Nike. Her return will kick off in the doubles tournament at the WTA 500 Queen’s Club Championships (HSBC Championships) in London, followed by the Berlin Tennis Open.
On Sunday, while speaking to the press, Williams revealed the true reason behind her comeback.
“I don’t need to win. I’ve won more than most people have in their whole lives,” Williams explained. “And it’s important that I keep reminding myself of that because I don’t have anything to prove. I don’t have anything to lose. And everything here is just to gain.”
For Williams, it’s much more than proving something. “It’s really about my kids getting to see me play. I mean, Olympia is a little bit older. Adira is very young. But it’s also having an opportunity to still be able to possibly do that one last time is kind of cool and exciting,” the American added.
However, the major question on everyone’s mind is whether she is aiming for a singles return and maybe a wildcard entry into Wimbledon.
When asked, Williams kept the answer grounded in reality. “I can’t say yeah, I can’t say no. Right now, no,” she admitted. “I feel like I probably need to train a little bit more if I want to play singles. We’ll see if I get there. And if not… that’s not my journey right now.”
Williams shares two daughters with her husband and Reddit co-founder, Alexis Ohanian. Olympia, now 8, was famously courtside for the latter half of Williams’ career, but her second daughter, Adira (born in 2023), has never seen her mother play professionally.
While she has dominated the doubles circuit with Venus (winning 14 Grand Slam titles together), Serena has hand-picked a new partner this time: 19-year-old Canadian pro, Victoria Mboko, who has admitted that Serena is her idol.
Mboko impressed her after the teenager won the 2025 Canadian Open. “What I liked the most about her was that the next time she played she still kept winning. Sometimes you win one and then have a little bit of a low… But I loved how she had this drive. It reminded me a lot of myself,” Williams added.
The HSBC Championships kick off on Monday with Williams and Mboko playing their Round of 16 match on Tuesday against Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez.
