Serena faces huge hurdle to make post-baby comeback

WASHINGTON: Serena Williams (pic) has spent her career defying the odds, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and becoming the oldest world No. 1 at age 35.

But now she will face perhaps the ultimate challenge – making a comeback after motherhood.

Serena, who announced her engagement to Reddit social media site co-founder Alexis Ohanian last December, revealed on Wednesday that she is having a baby, in a Snapchat photo with the caption “20 weeks”.

If her timing was precise, it would mean Serena won the Australian Open, her 23rd Grand Slam crown to set an Open era record, without dropping a set on January – while eight weeks pregnant.

It would also mean she could give birth during the US Open, which begins on Aug 28.

Kelly Bush Novak, Serena’s publicist, told said only that Serena “is expecting a baby this fall” and “looks forward to returning in 2018”.

After the flurry of well-wishes, a question quickly came to the fore – can Serena, who turns 36 in September, return from having her first child and overtake Australia’s Margaret Court for the all-time record of 24 Grand Slam singles crowns?

Moreover – would she even want to?

“This is another one of those ultimate challenges for Serena Williams, say around the age of 37, to try and tie Margaret Court,” said Pam Shriver, a 1980s US tennis star-turned-commentator for ESPN.

“There’s no reason she can’t do it. What she has done in her 30s is more than any other tennis player.”

Court was 29 when she gave birth to son Daniel in 1972 and the next year captured her final three Grand Slam titles, sweeping the Australian, French and US Open crowns.

Serena has not backed down from challenges, injuries, age, controversy and tragedy in becoming the face of women’s tennis for most of the past two decades.

She grew up in the crime-ridden Los Angeles suburb of Compton, learning the game she would come to dominate from her father Richard and practicing mainly against her older sister Venus.

They shunned the typical junior development circuit for work on their own, Venus drawing laughs when she said she expected to battle her sister for world No. 1 – only to be proven correct in epic fashion.

Serena’s storied WTA Tour career began at age 14 in 1995 in Quebec City.

She then stunned top-ranked Martina Hingis to capture the 1999 US Open at age 17 for her first Grand Slam title, becoming only the second African-American woman to win a major crown after Althea Gibson. — AFP