Serena Williams has taken the procedural move required of any player contemplating a competitive comeback, after the 23-time grand slam singles champion re-entered the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s (ITIA) registered testing pool for the first time since 2022.
Williams, 44, has not played an official match since her run to the third round of the US Open more than three years ago. Although she described her departure at the time as “evolving away” from the sport rather than a hard retirement, she filed the paperwork with the ITIA that September that exempted her from the sport’s stringent whereabouts requirements. To return to competition, however, players must make themselves available for out-of-competition testing for six months before they are allowed to enter an event.
