Although it seemed like Serena Williams would have played her last match as a tennis pro during the US Open, the 23-time Grand Slam champion still seems to have nefarious plans.

“I’m not retired yet,” she emphasizes a month later when her tennis career is discussed at a conference in San Francisco.

Given all the emotion evoked when Williams was KO’d by Ajla Tomljanovic in the third round last month, this performance on home soil in New York really seemed to be her last one. Even if she didn’t want to confirm it afterwards.

Watch the match against Ajla Tomljanovic during the US Open here:

However, the 41-year-old Williams announced in the run-up to the tournament that she was nearing the end of her professional career, without giving an exact date.

“I still haven’t really thought about retirement, but it feels weird that I’m not playing games for the first time in my life. I’m enjoying it but I’m still trying to find a balance,” she added seven weeks after their last duel.

This is striking because the WTA has already removed them from the ranking. When Roger Federer recently retired, she said: “Welcome to the pensioners’ club.”

Stunt against Kontaveit

Williams returned to the tennis court in June after more than exactly a year’s absence. In Wimbledon she was dead in the first round, at the US Open she caused a sensation by beating the world leader Anett Kontaveit.

This sensational victory should not have been her last. “The chance that I will return is very high. Come and see my house, there is a tennis court there.”