Serena Williams Reveals She’s 20 Weeks Pregnant

Serena Williams, the celebrated tennis player also one of the world’s most prominent athletes, confirmed on Wednesday that she was pregnant and expecting her first child later this year.

Williams, 35, has not played a match since winning her 23rd Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open on Jan. 28. This means that she conceived towards or immediately after winning the title.

Williams’s pregnancy was confirmed after a wild day of speculation that began when a photograph was posted on her  Snapchat page, perhaps inadvertently, that showed her posing sideways in a yellow bathing suit with what looked like a baby bump. The image, which appeared to be taken in a mirror, was captioned “20 weeks” and later deleted.

The announcement was the latest surprise from Williams, who unexpectedly announced her engagement to Alexis Ohanian, a businessman and the co-founder of Reddit, in December.

More major titles will have to wait, if they happen at all. Williams will turn 36 in September, but her spokeswoman Kelly Bush Novak said that while Williams would miss the rest of the 2017 season, she intended to return to the circuit in 2018.

Williams has won 10 of her 23 major singles titles since turning 30 and is by far the oldest women to hold the No. 1 spot in the WTA rankings.