Tuesday 10 October 2017 13:02, UK
Serena Williams and Andy Murray are aiming for a competitive return in time for the Australian Open, the tournament's director has revealed.
The 35-year-old became a mother in September and last played on tour when she secured her 23rd Grand Slam without dropping a set, while in the early stages of pregnancy.
Murray last played at Wimbledon when he suffered a quarter-final defeat to Sam Querrey and, according to Craig Tiley, both will be desperate to make a return to competitive tennis early next year.
"Serena, the competitor that she is, she wants to win more than the 23 Grand Slam titles that she has," said Tiley during an announcement on what fans could expect of the 2018 tournament.
"She was eight weeks pregnant when she played the Australian Open and very few people knew that."
The seven-time Australian Open champion and her fiance Alexis Ohanian named their daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr, with Williams previously tweeting:
"Fun fact my daughters initials are AO as in the Aussie open she won with me @AustralianOpen".
"We're proud of the fact she's gone around the world, she's told that her baby's AO - Australian Open, Alexis Ohanian," Tiley added.
"We have a special relationship with Serena, the Williams family, both her and Venus. She wants to come back in 2018 and defend her title. Obviously, at training now, there is several months to go and it will be up to her as far as where she is with her fitness."
Williams can match Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 Grand Slam titles if she defends her title.
Meanwhile, the tournament director for the opening Grand Slam of the season also discussed his hopes to see the main names within the men's game return to full fitness with former world No1s Murray and Novak Djokovic on the sidelines.
"On the men's side, there has been a lot of concern and conjecture around Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Kei Nishikori," Tiley admitted.
"I can tell you that in talking to Andy, he has been training and he is preparing for having a great year in 2018. How much would this year have hurt him, to watch over the entire year Roger and Rafa share four grand slam titles - he would not have like that.
"As competitive as Andy is, we know he's back and he'll want to improve his current ranking of number three in the world and getting back to number one."
Sky Sports Tennis will have all the action from the Shanghai Masters before we head to the Erste Bank Open and Swiss Indoors Basel and then the Paris Masters.
The Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan and season-ending extravaganza World Tour Finals at London's O2 in November end another memorable year which will be covered via our website sky.mnosports.com/tennis with live blogs and updates as the season reaches its climax.
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