(Photo credit: Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images)

Former World No. 1 Serena Williams took a major step toward a potential return to professional tennis by recently re-entering the anti-doping testing pool, The Athletic reported Tuesday.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion's name appeared on an Oct. 6 list of players in the International Registered Testing Pool, a requirement for a return to competition.

'She has notified us that she wants to be reinstated into the testing pool,' Adrian Bassett, a spokesperson for the International Tennis Integrity Agency, confirmed in a text message Tuesday to The Athletic.

'I do not know if this means she is coming back, or just giving herself the option. All I can say is she's back in the pool and therefore subject to whereabouts.'

A spokesperson for Williams did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Williams, 44, last played on the WTA Tour at the U.S. Open in 2022. In August of that year, she announced in a Vogue magazine article that she was 'evolving away' from tennis.

'I have never liked the word retirement,' she wrote. 'It doesn't feel like a modern word to me. I've been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people. Maybe the best word to describe what I'm up to is evolution.'

Ranked No. 1 for 319 weeks, Williams won 73 singles titles on the WTA Tour and earned nearly $95 million in prize money. She won Wimbledon and the Australian Open seven times each, the U.S. Open six times and the French Open three times.

Williams also won 14 major doubles titles with her sister, Venus. She is the only player to accomplish a career Golden Slam (all four majors) in both singles and doubles.

Williams and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, are raising two daughters.

--Field Level Media