Serena Williams announced at the Met Gala on Monday that she is expecting her second child with husband, Alexis Ohanian. The 23-time Grand Slam champion retired from tennis after last year’s US Open and already has a daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr., born in 2017. Williams donned a Gucci dress and layers of Tiffany jewelry to reveal her baby bump. Roger Federer, one of the co-chairs this year, was spotted with his wife, Mirka, while model Karlie Kloss also announced her own second pregnancy.
Williams was candid about her and Ohanian’s desire to expand their family in the essay she penned in Vogue magazine last year announcing that she would be “evolving away” from tennis. “In the last year, Alexis and I have been trying to have another child,” Williams wrote at the time. “And we recently got some information from my doctor that put my mind at ease and made me feel that whenever we’re ready, we can add to our family. I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”
Williams famously won the 2017 Australian Open, the last of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles, while two months pregnant with Olympia. She had to withdraw from the French Open and Wimbledon as a result of the pregnancy, but returned to the tour in early 2018, reaching the final of Wimbledon and the finals of the US Open. Despite not winning a Grand Slam since the birth of her first child, she has shown glimpses of the ability that saw her recently return to the world’s top 10.
