Serena hints she may be pregnant
Serena Williams on Wednesday appeared to reveal she is pregnant, posting a photo of herself in a bathing suit on Snapchat with the caption “20 weeks”.
The 35-year-old, who will return to the No 1 ranking in the world next week, later deleted the photo. Neither Serena nor her management team were available for comment.
If she is indeed 20 weeks into her term, that would mean she was approximately two months pregnant when she captured her record 23rd Grand Slam tournament title at the Australian Open in January.
Her victory over elder sister Venus Williams broke a tie with Steffi Graf for the most Grand Slam singles championships in the sport’s modern era. Serena has not played since, citing a knee injury.
Serena announced her engagement to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian last December.
Other women have left the Tour to have children and returned, including Belgian player Kim Clijsters, who retired and had a child before coming back and winning three Grand Slam titles as a mother.
Serena, who has played professionally for two decades, first gained the No 1 ranking in 2002 and has held that spot for more than six years in total during her career. She is often regarded as the greatest woman tennis player of all time.
Andy Murray returned from over a month out with an elbow injury to launch his clay-court season with a gruelling 7-5, 7-5 defeat of Gilles Muller at the Monte Carlo Masters on Wednesday.
The world No 1 and top seed waited until late in both sets to make his move, finally putting Muller away in just under two hours to reach the third round.
But the 29-year-old Scot was poor on his serve with eight double faults while breaking Luxembourg’s Muller four times.