Serena Williams isn’t done yet. Not with tennis. Not with singles. Not with the idea that, even at 44 and after four years away, she can still walk onto a court and bend the sport to her will.
Speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday, Aug. 31, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion said she “probably will” play singles again, a simple phrase that lands like a promise.
Her comeback, she explained, isn’t just about nostalgia or one last lap. It’s about her daughters, Olympia and Adira, and the message they absorb every time they see their mother step back into the arena.
“Anything is possible,” she said, framing her return as a living lesson for the two girls watching from home and from the players’ box.
A Stumble at Wimbledon, Not a Full Stop
Williams’ first steps back into competition came in doubles earlier this year, a gentle re-entry for a player who once ruled the singles game with unforgiving intensity. Then came Wimbledon, her first singles match since the long hiatus, a three-set loss to 20-year-old Maya Joint.
The result mattered less than the sight of her back on Centre Court. The match, though, came at a cost.
“I injured myself at Wimbledon. And I just didn't have time to recover, unfortunately,” Williams told interviewer Malika Andrews. The setback forced her to pause, reassess, and make a call that underlined her respect for the sport and those trying to break into it.
“I just didn't want to take any opportunities away from someone in terms of getting a wild card if I wasn't able to compete at a way that I knew I could,” she said.
That’s the competitor talking. If she’s on the entry list, she expects to be dangerous. If she can’t be, she steps aside.
“I Probably Will Play Again. I Have To.”
The injury has delayed her singles return, not derailed it. Asked about what comes next, Williams left the door not just ajar, but half open.
“I probably will play again. I have to,” she said. “After some of those returns, I think I need to play at least once.”
Those “returns” are the flashes that still convince her there’s more in the tank: the timing, the power, the instinct that doesn’t erode with age or time away. For Williams, one more singles outing isn’t about ceremony. It’s about satisfying that internal standard that has driven her since she first arrived on tour as a teenager.
New York Nights, New Partners
This year’s US Open has already given fans a different kind of Serena show. She stepped into the revamped mixed doubles competition alongside Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, at his request — a generational crossover that lit up the draw sheet.
They won their opening match, an early jolt of electricity in Queens, before bowing out in the quarterfinals to Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli. The run was brief but memorable: a legend of one era sharing the court with the defining talent of the next.
Yet Serena’s story in New York this year isn’t limited to that one partnership.
Unfinished Business With Venus
There is still the matter of the Williams sisters, side by side again.
Serena and Venus, who last played together in 2022, reunited earlier this month in Cincinnati, only to lose their first match back. Even so, their presence still carries weight, and the US Open responded with a wild card into the women’s doubles draw.
It’s not just a sentimental gesture. It’s a chance for two icons to write at least one more chapter in the city where they’ve lifted trophies, changed expectations, and inspired generations.
Their opening match comes later this week. The singles question hangs in the air, unanswered but alive. For now, Serena Williams walks back into Flushing Meadows with a racket in her hand, her sister at her side, and the unmistakable sense that, somehow, her story still isn’t finished.
