Serena Williams: A Return to Singles and Doubles at 44

Serena Williams isn’t done yet. Not with tennis. Not with singles. Not with the idea that, at 44, she can still walk onto a court and bend the sport to her will.

In an interview on ABC’s "Good Morning America" on Monday, Aug. 31, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion said she “probably will” play singles again as she continues a remarkable return after a four-year absence.

This comeback isn’t just about her. It’s about the two small faces watching from home.

Her daughters, Olympia and Adira, are the fuel.

"I wanted to show my daughters that anything is possible," Williams said, explaining what pulled her back into the grind, the travel, the rehab, the risk of failure. The trophies are already in the cabinet. The point now is the example.

She eased back into competition earlier this year in doubles, then stepped alone into the spotlight at Wimbledon for her first singles match since returning. Across the net stood 20-year-old Maya Joint, a player young enough to have grown up with Serena as a constant on television rather than a rival on tour.

Williams pushed the match to three sets but came away with a loss and, more significantly, an injury.

"I injured myself at Wimbledon. And I just didn't have time to recover, unfortunately," she told interviewer Malika Andrews. That wasn’t just bad timing; it forced her into a decision that revealed how seriously she still takes the sport and its ecosystem.

"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.

Even now, with nothing left to prove, she refuses to treat a Grand Slam main draw as a vanity project.

The question, inevitably, is what comes next. Williams didn’t dodge it.

"I probably will play again. I have to," she said. "After some of those returns, I think I need to play at least once."

That line said as much as any ranking or result. The competitor is still there, still hearing the echo of clean contact off the strings and wondering how far that level can carry her one more time.

Her latest chapter has unfolded in New York, where her history runs deepest and the expectations are always loudest. At this year’s US Open, Williams stepped into the revamped mixed doubles draw at the request of Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, the men’s star who grew up in the era she helped define.

The pairing was more than a novelty. They won their first match, showing flashes of the kind of court sense and shot-making that made Williams a global force. Their run ended in the quarterfinals against Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli, a reminder that nostalgia doesn’t win tie-breaks and that this field, as ever, is ruthless.

There is, though, one more strand of unfinished business in New York.

Serena and Venus Williams, the partnership that changed the face of tennis long before either sister lifted a singles trophy, are back in women’s doubles at the US Open. It’s their first major together since 2022, a reunion born not out of ceremony but out of a shared desire to compete again on the sport’s biggest stage.

Earlier this month in Cincinnati, they played their first match together in two years and lost. The result didn’t scare them off. Tournament organizers at Flushing Meadows handed them a wild card, a nod to their legacy and to the idea that some stories deserve another scene.

Their opening match in New York comes later this week. The stakes are different now, the questions bigger than the scoreline. How much does Serena have left in her body? How much more does she want to give? And if this really is the final stretch, how many more times will she walk out alone for a singles match, still chasing that feeling that "anything is possible"—for her, and for the daughters watching every swing?