Serena drops a baby hint

SERENA WILLIAMS shocked the tennis world last night with an apparent announcement that she is 20 weeks pregnant with her first child.

If confirmed, it could spell the end of the greatest career in women’s tennis, one which has seen the 35-year-old American win 23 Grand Slam titles, including seven Wimbledons.

Williams posted a picture of herself in a yellow swimsuit, showing off a prominent bump, on social media app Snapchat.

She captioned the picture ‘20 weeks’, suggesting that she was in the early stages of pregnancy when winning the Australian Open in January.

She later deleted the post and a congratulatory tweet from the WTA was removed.

She became engaged to social media entrepreneur Alex Ohanian just before the new year and has made no secret of her desire to have children.

Williams will return to the world No1 spot next Monday, even though she has played only two ranking tournaments outside the Grand Slams in the past year.

Should she give birth later in the summer, it is impossible to see her returning before 2018, by which time she would be into her 37th year.

She has not played on tour since her grand slam success Down Under, when she overtook Steffi Graf to claim the outright Open era record for slam singles titles.

She pulled out of the recent tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami citing a knee injury but is scheduled to return at the Madrid Open next month. Speaking to Glamour magazine last summer, she said: ‘I definitely want to have kids one day. That’s always something I’ve wanted as long as I could remember. And the older I get, the more I’m like, “I’m too young!” ‘Hopefully I’ll be able to mature one of these days, get serious, and at least have them pretty fast.’ If Williams (left) is pregnant, she will be the second top player in less than a year to take time off to have a baby. Former world No1 Victoria Azarenka gave birth to her first child Leo on December 20 and is planning to return to the sport at the end of July.