‘It doesn’t need to be a setback’: how elite athletes return from pregnancy

Serena Williams was two months pregnant when she won the Australian Open in 2017. Photograph: Aaron Favila/AP

Serena Williams has never liked the word “retirement”. Her move away from tennis, announced in an essay in the September issue of Vogue, is an “evolution”, she says. In her transition, she will shift focus from tennis to “other things” that are important to her. One is her wish to have another child.

Williams and her husband have been trying for a baby in the past year, a move apparently encouraged by their four-year-old daughter, who has hopes of becoming a big sister. But, as Williams told the magazine: “I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”