{"id":24171,"date":"2026-02-24T10:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T08:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/serena-certain-to-make-comeback-former-coach-macci\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:53","slug":"serena-certain-to-make-comeback-former-coach-macci","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/serena-certain-to-make-comeback-former-coach-macci\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena certain to make comeback: Former coach Macci"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Serena Williams&#8217; former coach Rick Macci believes the 23-times Grand Slam champion is certain to return to competitive tennis and said the 44-year-old is &#8220;going all out&#8221; in training to get herself ready for a return to the sport.<\/span><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"ms-outlook-mobile-signature\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Williams, who won her last Grand Slam singles title in 2017 and has not competed since the 2022 US Open, can officially enter tournaments after rejoining the tennis anti-doping testing pool last year.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">The American has denied that she is preparing to return to the sport she dominated for two decades, but raised eyebrows last month by deflecting questions about a comeback during an appearance on <i>NBC&#8217;s<\/i> <i>Today Show.<\/i><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Macci, who previously coached Williams and her sister Venus in the early 1990s, told French publication L&#8217;Equipe that he believed she is preparing for a comeback.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;She&#8217;s training with lots of sparring partners, guys,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She&#8217;s also played with Alycia Parks, a good friend of hers in South Florida. So I have no doubt about it (her comeback). I always thought she would come back from time to time to make appearances with Venus in doubles.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;But we&#8217;re not just talking about doubles here &#8230; she&#8217;s going all out. If she didn&#8217;t think she could compete with the best and win matches, she wouldn&#8217;t do it. It&#8217;s 100% certain she&#8217;ll dive back into competition.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>Macci, 71, had no doubts about Williams&#8217; ability to handle the rigours of the tour.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The question is whether that competitive spirit is still there,&#8221; he added. &#8220;She&#8217;s answering that question herself: she&#8217;s coming back because she is a competitor at heart.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Williams said in August 2022 that she was &#8220;evolving away from tennis&#8221; and her team has not responded to Reuters requests for comment on her potential comeback.<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\">Macci suggested that Williams could use Indian Wells or the Miami Open to launch her comeback next month.<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\">&#8220;It&#8217;ll be interesting to see how fit she is,&#8221; he added.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Making an appearance, playing an exhibition match or a match is one thing. Doing it again the next day and the day after that, and performing well day after day is another.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23116,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-24171","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Williams won her last Grand Slam singles title in 2017.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Williams won her last Grand Slam singles title in 2017.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26933,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24171\/revisions\/26933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=24171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}