Serena Set For Rome Return This Week, But Unsure Over Olympics

Serena Williams is set for her return to tennis this week in Rome, an event she’s won four times prior. The 39-year-old Williams hasn’t played since her semifinal loss to Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open in February.

In her first clay match since the French Open last October when she withdrew in the second round because of an Achilles, Serena will face the winner of French finalist Nadia Podoroska or Laura Siegemund. Despite the layoff, she’s says she’s feeling good.

“Everything has been going pretty good,” Serena said Monday in Rome. “I feel pretty good. Had a good time training and getting ready for the clay court, so it’s good.

“Pretty fresh. But at the same time, it’s good to start fresh but it’s also hard to start fresh.”

She also talked about what she did during her time off.

“I trained for the past two-and-a-half weeks at Patrick’s academy, and then training a lot on the clay in the United States with team members,” Serena said. “Mackie came back and other people joined, and that was really exciting for me. So we had an intense, you know, several weeks of training, very intense.”

The big news from the presser was her non-committal to the Olympics this summer in Tokyo. The 4-time gold medalist always targets the Olympics, but due to the COVID restrictions which could prevent her from bringing daughter Olympia and the schedule, the event might not be a priority.

“I haven’t really thought much about that,” she said of going to Tokyo without Olympia. “I haven’t spent 24 hours without her, so that kind of answers the question itself. We’re best friends.

“I think there is other reasons. I haven’t really thought much about Tokyo, because it was supposed to be last year and now it’s this year, and then there is this pandemic and there is so much to think about. Then there is the Grand Slams. It’s just a lot. So I have really been taking it one day at a time to a fault, and I definitely need to figure out my next moves.”

With Venus also sliding in the rankings, her older sister might not qualify. And turning 40 in September, we may never see Serena (or Venus) at the Olympics again.

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