Serena Williams, the winner of 23 Grand Slam singles titles and four Olympic gold medals — three of them in doubles — has confirmed that she will skip the Tokyo Games, scheduled to commence on July 23.
“I’m actually not on the Olympic list, not that I’m aware of,” Serena said on Sunday, a day before the scheduled Wimbledon start.
“If so (if I am on the list), then I shouldn’t be on it. There’s a lot of reasons that I made my Olympic decision. I don’t feel like going into them today. Maybe another day. Sorry. In the past, the Olympics have been a wonderful place for me.
“I really haven’t thought about what it will be like not to be there. I’m going to keep not thinking about it,” the American, who is three months shy of her 40th birthday, said.
Serena won the Olympic doubles gold in 2000 Sydney and 2008 Beijing. At the 2012 London, she won both the singles and doubles gold.
Williams, who is seeded No.6 in the absence of Japan’s Naomi Osaka and defending champion Simona Halep of Romania, has not played since losing to Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina in the last-16 at Roland-Garros.
She notched up number 23 at the 2017 Australian Open when she was in the early stages of pregnancy but has drawn a blank since Roland-Garros 2018, which marked her return after her daughter’s birth. Four times she has reached the Slam finals in that period, including the most recent two at Wimbledon.
Williams did not reveal why she decided to skip the delayed Olympics.