Is Serena Williams playing in US Open? Latest news, updates on status for 2022 tennis grand slam – Sporting News

For more than a year, Serena Williams has been notably absent from the sport she has dominated for so long. 
Williams didn’t play a match between her injury retirement in the first round at Wimbledon in 2021 and her return to the same tournament this summer, which resulted in an opening-round defeat to Harmony Tan. 
While her Wimbledon return wasn’t all that she hoped for, Williams showed she has something left in the tank, and she shot down any retirement talk after the match, saying that she was looking forward to preparing for the US Open.
“The US Open was the place where I won my first Slam, it’s super-special. There’s definitely a lot of motivation to get better and play at home,” Williams said.
Her path back to Flushing Meadows begins in Toronto at the National Bank Open, where she is in the singles draw this week. It’s the perfect setting for a US Open tune-up. Maybe that’s just what Williams needs to propel herself ahead of the storied competition, one she has claimed six times.
MORE: How to watch Serena Williams at the National Bank Open
Here’s the latest on whether Williams will take part in the 2022 US Open.
Williams was included on the US Open entry list released in July and is expected to participate in the US Open Series event in Cincinnati later this month. However, she hasn’t officially indicated whether she will take the court for the 2022 US Open just yet.
Williams has appeared on a host of hard courts more often ahead of the US Open. Here’s a video of her and sister Venus training on the hard courts at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. earlier this month.
This one from D.C. takes us back 😍@serenawilliams 🆚 @Venuseswilliamspic.twitter.com/hXdMoNsTdA
In the meantime, she’s getting some matches under her belt at the National Bank Open. Williams’ straight-sets opening-round win in Toronto against Nuria Parrizas Diaz on Aug. 8 marked her first victory on tour since the 2021 French Open. 
How she plays in Toronto and perhaps Cincinnati will be an indicator of what to expect from the 23-time Grand Slam champion ahead of the US Open, which now appears as if it will be her final tournament. 
Williams wrote a first-person “farewell to tennis” for the September issue of Vogue magazine, explaining at length her decision to step away from the game after the year’s final Grand Slam so she can focus on her family and other off-court ventures. 
“I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out,” she wrote. 
Williams has walked that line in recent years, deciding in the spring after a conversation with Tiger Woods to make one last comeback try with Wimbledon and the US Open the focus. 
“Unfortunately I wasn’t ready to win Wimbledon this year,” she wrote. “And I don’t know if I will be ready to win New York. But I’m going to try.”

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