Serena Williams Will Return to Tennis in First Pro Match Since 2022

Anna Lazarus CaplanMon, June 1, 2026 at 2:27 PM UTC

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Serena Williams
Credit: Stefanie Keenan/Getty -

Serena Williams is making her tennis comeback

The 23-time Grand Slam singles champ will play doubles at a WTA tournament

Williams last played at the 2022 US Open, and months later gave birth to her second daughter

Serena Williams is officially coming back to tennis.The 23-time Grand Slam singles champ, 44, will play doubles at the WTA 500 Queen’s Club event in London, the tournament announced on X on Monday, June 1.Williams received one of the two available wildcards to play in the tournament, and her partner is set to be 19-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko, according to The Athletic.

Williams' rep did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.Williams quietly re-entered the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s (ITIA) registered drug testing pool last year, a procedural move necessary in her comeback.

“Serena Williams is back on the Registered Testing Pool list,” an ITIA spokesperson told The Guardian late last year, noting that athletes returning from retirement “need to make themselves available for testing for six months before they can compete again,” in line with World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) regulations.Shortly after the news, the tennis great hit back at the building buzz.“Omg yall I’m NOT coming back,” Williams wrote on X in a Dec. 2, 2025 post. “This wildfire is crazy.”

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Serena Williams at the 2022 US Open
Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty

Williams last played in the 2022 US Open after sharing that she was “evolving away” from tennis to pursue entrepreneurial projects. Nearly a year later in August 2023, she gave birth to her second daughter, whom she shares with husband Alexis Ohanian.Yet in the nearly four years since her last match, the mother of two has been the center of rumors regarding a return, fueled by her own rededication to fitness.In August 2025, she revealed to PEOPLE that she had lost 31 lbs. while using a GLP-1. One year earlier, she told PEOPLE that she had taken up running, but that she "missed tennis like crazy."Earlier this year, Williams had a back-and-forth with co-host Savannah Guthrie in a Today show interview in which she was grilled her about a return to the sport.

“Recently — tell me if I have this right — you reentered the drug testing pool, which some see as the precursor to a return to tennis,” Guthrie said to Williams. “So you know I have to ask, are you returning to professional tennis?”Williams laughed at the question, asking Guthrie, “I mean, really? Are you asking this on the Today show? Oh my gosh.”As Williams continued to avoid the question, Guthrie pressed, “Is that a no?”

“Is that a no?” Williams asked, as off camera a man could be heard laughing. “All the people on your set that are laughing. This is distracting. You’re distracting us over there.”Follow your favorite athletes on and off the field with PEOPLE's free sports newsletter — sign up now!“Okay, but you didn’t say yes or no!” Guthrie mused. Williams continued to laugh off the exchange, finally saying, “ I’m just having fun and enjoying my life right now,” and when Guthrie pointed out that her response was “not a yes or a no,” Williams replied, “I’m just gonna see what happens.” As recently as March, Williams was known to be sparring with pro tennis player Alycia Parks."She's hitting good," Parks told the Tennis Channel at the time. "Yeah, she's definitely fit. She looks great and she's hitting the ball amazing.”Parks added, "I don't know if she's coming back, I don't know when she's coming back. We just go to practice, we don't really talk too much about her coming back. It's just like fun stuff."

on People

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