Serena Williams threw cold water on the idea that she might be preparing to return to tennis, writing on social media Tuesday that she is “NOT coming back,” after a spokesman for the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) said the 23-time Grand Slam champion had registered with the sport's drug-testing body.
That is the first step that would be required by a player seeking to come out of retirement.
The 44-year-old Williams, one of the greats of the game, has not competed since bidding farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open. At the time, Williams said she didn't want to use the word “retiring” and instead declared that she was “evolving” away from tennis.
It was not clear when or where — or even if — Williams actually will play again, and she later posted: “Omg yall I'm NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy.”
Her agent did not immediately return a request for comment.
In a statement emailed to The Associated Press, U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Brendan McIntyre said: “We are aware that Serena has filed the necessary paperwork with the International Tennis Integrity Agency to reenter the International Registered Testing Pool. If Serena decides to return and compete at the professional level, together with her fans, we will enthusiastically welcome the return of one of the greatest champions in the history of our sport.”
Williams was one of the biggest stars of any sport, a dominant talent on the court and still someone drawing attention away from it. If she were to end up returning to the tour, it would be a significant story line, of course.
Her decision to place her name back in the testing pool with the ITIA, which oversees anti-doping and anti-corruption efforts, was first reported by Bounces.
“She is on the list and back in the testing pool,” ITIA spokesman Adrian Bassett wrote to the AP on Tuesday.
Athletes returning to testing need to provide information on their whereabouts — details on their location when they are not at an official event and times when they are available to give samples. Someone who retires while they are on the list and later comes back needs to be available for testing for six months before they are allowed to return to competition.
Williams' older sister, Venus, returned to competition this July at age 45 after nearly 1 1/2 years away from the tour; she never had announced her retirement. At the U.S. Open, Venus became the oldest player to play singles at the American Grand Slam tournament since 1981.
When Venus, a seven-time major singles champion, came back at the DC Open, she spoke about wishing Serena would join her back on tour. They claimed 14 Grand Slam doubles titles as a pair.
“I keep saying to my team: The only thing that would make this better is if she was here. Like, we always did everything together, so of course I miss her,” Venus said at the time when asked about a video on social media that showed Serena swinging a racket. “But if she comes back, I’m sure she’ll let y’all know.”
FILE - Serena Williams acknowledges the crowd after losing to Ajla Tomljanovic, of Austrailia, iin the third round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Sept. 2, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
FILE - Serena Williams, of the United States, reacts as she holds up the trophy after winning the women's singles final against Garbine Muguruza of Spain, at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Saturday July 11, 2015. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sought on Wednesday to explain his rationale for the war against Iran at a pivotal moment at home and abroad, but he offered few new details as he amasses extraordinary executive authority to prosecute the military operation.
The war is fast becoming a signature of his second-term agenda and the speech was a capstone to a remarkable day flexing presidential power.
Trump started the morning as the first sitting president to show up for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, a stunning reach of the executive into the affairs of the judicial branch. He ended with his first primetime address from the White House about a war he launched on his own, bulldozing past Congress.
On an early spring night when many Americans may have been looking upward as Artemis II astronauts lifted off for NASA's return to the moon, Trump gave a nod to that historic milestone. Then he quickly refocused attention back to him — and to the conflict with Iran that has killed more than a dozen U.S. service members and appears to have no easy exit in sight.
"America, as it has been for five years under my presidency is winning — and now winning bigger than ever before," Trump said.
“We’re going to finish the job and were going to finish it very fast," he added.
The president said at the top of his address that he wanted to “discuss why Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world,” showing that part of the goal for Wednesday’s speech was to take on the confusion that has persisted as he and his administration have shifted their reasons for launching the mission and its objectives.
But Wednesday night, Trump did not offer any new explanations.
He maintained that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, calling such a prospect “an intolerable threat.”
Though he and his administration insisted that the U.S. and Israel obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in strikes last summer, he said Wednesday that Iran sought to rebuild its nuclear program after those strikes at a new different location. He did not offer details but said it indicated Iran was not backing away from its nuclear ambitions. He also said Iran was building a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles that were a threat to America’s homeland.
While he said Iran’s ballistic missile capacity was greatly reduced, he didn’t explain how the operation had headed off Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
He instead painted the threats from Iran generally as having been wiped away, though he didn’t back up that assertion, especially as multiple competing factions of power remain within Iran’s theocracy.
Iran long has insisted its nuclear program was peaceful. It had, however, been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. Before the war, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran had yet to begin a weapons program, but had “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”
Thousands of additional U.S. troops are heading to the Middle East. Gulf allies are urging Trump to finish the fight, arguing that Tehran hasn’t been weakened enough.
And yet Trump himself has predicted the U.S. will be done “within maybe two weeks."
He said the “core strategic objectives are nearing completion" and did not signal any preparations for a ground invasion by American troops — to retrieve Iran's enriched uranium or secure the Strait of Hormuz, where a chokehold by Iran has sent energy prices soaring.
But Trump offered few details about next steps. At one point he told allies to simply reopen the waterway critical to oil shipments themselves — “take it," he implored.
Trump is fast approaching the 60-day mark when he must seek approval from Congress under the War Powers Act to continue any military operations.
Trump did not announce the imminent start of peace talks or any other diplomatic effort to end the war.
Instead he recounted the long wars in Korea and Vietnam and vowed the U.S. would be better off because of this one.
“This is a true investment for your children and your grandchildren’s future,” he said.
Trump has berated U.S. allies for not doing their part in the conflict, even as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would convene a diplomatic summit to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the fighting ends.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have suggested that NATO will need to be reconsidered once the Iran war is over. But Trump did not mention NATO by name during the speech.
Trump has gone so far as to say he is “seriously considering” withdrawing from the military alliance, which has been a bulwark of transatlantic unity and security since the end of World War II.
But he cannot simply withdraw from NATO on his own without a legal fight.
“We’re going to have to re-examine the value of NATO and that alliance for our country,” Rubio said Tuesday in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “Ultimately, that’s a decision for the president to make, and he’ll have to make it.”
Trump, who ran as the “America First” president vowing not to drag the country into endless wars, has yet to fully address the political pushback he faces from his own base of supporters over the Iran conflict.
The U.S. economy is roiling, the financial markets are swinging with Trump's various pronouncements about the war effort, and Americans are facing pain at the pump as the cost of living rises.
While the president often describes the inflationary high prices as a momentary setback, it's all feeding into a rocky November midterm election.
Some of the sharpest criticism he’s faced in the early days of the Iran war has come from once-loyal media figures in the MAGA-universe, including Tucker Carlson.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House before signing an executive order Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
