Serena Williams’s maternity break leaves women’s tennis with a lot to look forward to

In the spate of the few hours that the news of Serena Williams’ pregnancy was first announced – then deleted – and then confirmed again, the world of tennis tilted right on its axis.

Not because her maternity leave opens up the WTA’s competitive pool for the rest of the players to try and capitalise on. But, mainly because her absence – and potential comeback to the Tour in 2018 – also leaves the American’s prospects wide open of taking it further from where she has had left off this year.

How will the WTA circuit regroup?

Up until a few days ago, the topic of discussion involving Williams pertained to her retaking the world No 1 ranking from Angelique Kerber next Monday in spite of not having played in nearly three months. It spoke a great deal about the depth of Williams’s domination, as it enhanced the skewed gap between her and the rest of the players, with Kerber at the forefront of this imbalance.

In the eight tournaments that she has played in the first four months of the 2017 season, Kerber’s results have swung widely with 16 wins and eight losses. One of these defeats came in in the final of the recently concluded Monterrey Open against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and it’s among the six matches which the German has lost to players ranked inside the top-20.

Additionally, her shoddy results have also put her quite down – in the 10th place – on the leader-board of the Road to Singapore, where the WTA finals will be held for the top-eight players at the end of the season.

There again, the fourth placed Williams convincingly leads Kerber. As do the likes of Karolina Pliskova and Caroline Wozniacki, both of whom who have had a better margin of results across the first portion of the year.

While the 11th-ranked Dane still has a long way to go in terms of pipping Kerber, Pliskova, nonetheless, remains a looming threat. Not only is the third ranked Czech closest to narrowing down on the German’s ranking, with her resourceful – and powerful – game, she also does have the potency to scale greater heights in the sport. As she has been doing since the second-half of the 2016 season, when she first broke through the ranks.

Apart from these well-grounded names, the comebacks of Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka and Petra Kvitova also merit equal consideration, if not more. Though the impact of their individual stories of rejoining the circuit may – or may not – be measured immediately, the open nature of the Tour will, nonetheless, be heightened promptly.

Likewise, while each of the three have had their own reasons to be away from tennis, it’s the Belarusian with whom Williams will share a parallel in the days and months to come. And, if need be, even borrow a few leaves from her redrawn career trajectory. As much as she can from those who have gone on to set similar precedents in the past.

How will the 2018 comeback be for Serena Williams?

The 23-time Grand Slam champion has, however, distinguished her on that front as well.

The closest comparison that can then be drawn about Williams, who played – and won – the Australian Open in the first trimester of her pregnancy is with Margaret Court. Back in 1971, Court lost the women’s singles final in Wimbledon to Evonne Goolagong, only to realise after the tournament that she was pregnant. In the near five decades since that eventuality, it’s quite incredible that no player has come closer, or even tried, to replicating the feat.

Both Court and Goolagong did return to competitive tennis and went on win Majors. As did Kim Clijsters when she won the US and Australian Opens after deciding to give tennis one more shot in 2009. But none of these players were playing in their mid-30s when they sought to return to tennis. Much like Azarenka will not be when she begins her 2017 season in Stanford, later in the year. So, where does that leave Serena Williams, who will be 36 next year?

There is nothing that Williams has failed to accomplish in her near 22 years of playing professional tennis. She is a Grand Slam champion multiple times over, has won scores of WTA titles, boasts of winning head-to-heads against almost every player she has faced, and most recently went to concretise her name as the greatest of all time in the sport. The only area that is probably left to be covered is equalling – and perhaps surpassing – Court’s record of 24 Majors, an indelible vestige of the pre-Open Era greatness.

There’s no reason why she cannot get on par, and beyond, with Court. But there’s a lot to be said about her motivation and the potential shifting of her priorities – from being deeply invested in her career to wanting to do the same with her newly started family. In the past, Williams was able to balance her on-court and off-court life quite adroitly. This time, though, it’s an altogether different variant of a challenge. The answer to which, not even Serena Williams may know in exact terms.