Regardless of insisting that she was not plotting a comeback, Serena Williams is about to be reinstated as an energetic tennis participant within the eyes of the Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company.
The company has added Williams, 44, to its reinstatements listing, efficient February 22, 2026, as soon as she has accomplished her necessary six-month ready interval after re-entering the anti-doping testing pool.
“The Serena comeback is now formally official,” declared tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg, who first shared a screenshot of Williams’ identify on the reinstatement listing through his Bounces weblog.
Information of Williams’ obvious comeback comes at some point after she made headlines for showing in a Tremendous Bowl business for the burden loss firm Ro. (Her husband, Alexis Ohanianis on the board of Ro.)
“I’m on Ro. 34 kilos down on Ro,” she stated within the advert, which aired in the course of the Seattle Seahawks’ win over the New England Patriots. “More healthy on Ro. Supported by Ro. FDA-approved, GLP-1 choices now even in a tablet. Weight reduction experience that I belief. I’m transferring higher on Ro. I’m feeling higher on Ro. I’m Serena Williams. That is me on Ro.”
“I really feel higher now than I’ve in years,” Williams added in a press release to advertise the advert. “For me, this journey has been about feeling robust, energized, and wholesome in my physique; I really feel like myself once more. Being on Ro helped me give attention to my well being in a means that really labored for me, and I’m excited to share how nice I really feel with tens of millions of individuals in the course of the Tremendous Bowl.”
Williams has been open about her resolution to take a GLP-1 prior to now. She additionally touted her weight reduction in an August 2025 interview with Individuals.
“It was loopy as a result of I’d by no means been in a spot like that in my life the place I labored so onerous, ate so wholesome and will by no means get all the way down to the place I wanted to be at,” she stated. “I had by no means taken shortcuts in my profession and at all times labored actually onerous. I do know what it takes to be the most effective.”
As soon as upon a time, a well-known individual may drop some pounds with alarming pace and say with a straight face that she’d performed it by consuming a balanced weight loss program of smaller parts. Although we common people needed that to be true — it gave us hope we might comply with their easy steps and shrink ourselves — (…)
As of 2026, skilled tennis has not banned GLP-1s, however that would quickly change. The World Anti-Doping Company has added the medication to its monitoring program, which means the group remains to be learning the compound’s impact on athletes.
For Williams, that would come into play if she is, in truth, returning to tennis — one thing she denied through X when information first broke that she had re-entered the testing pool final yr.
“Omg yall I’m NOT coming again,” she wrote through X on the time. “This wildfire is loopy.”
She dodged the rumor on January 28, nevertheless, when she appeared on At this time and host Savannah Guthrie pressed her on the subject.
Vanessa Williams obtained candid about taking “game-changer” weight-loss medication. Williams, 62, opened up about taking Mounjaro for 2 years whereas chatting with Hi there Journal on Monday, January 12. “It’s a sport‑changer,” she stated of the medicine, which is an injection made for Kind-2 diabetes that additionally causes weight-loss. The actress defined, “Once I turned 60, (…)
“I imply, actually? Are you asking this on the At this time present? Oh my gosh,” Williams stated.
After some forwards and backwards, Guthrie, 54, requested if Williams’ evasions had been “a no.”
“I’m simply having enjoyable and having fun with my life proper now,” Williams replied. “I’m simply gonna see what occurs.”
“That’s a ‘perhaps’ to me,” Guthrie stated.
Williams insisted, “That’s not a ‘perhaps.’”