Serena Williams wanted another baby. At the Met Gala, she said she’s pregnant.

Serena Williams has resisted saying publicly that she has retired from tennis and the finality that would entail, but now she has one more reason to stay away from competition for the foreseeable future.

Amid the costume-themed glitter of the Met Gala on Monday night, Williams announced, both on the red carpet and on social media, that she was pregnant with her second child.

She attended the event with her husband, Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, and said in an Instagram post that she was “so excited when Anna Wintour invited the three of us to the Met Gala.”

On the red carpet for the event, Ohanian put his hand on his wife’s belly in a gesture that hinted at pregnancy. Williams also posted a series of portraits depicting her cradling her stomach with both hands.

Williams wasn’t the only pregnant celebrity at the gala. Singer Rihanna, who wore a white Valentino dress on Monday night, announced her pregnancy during her halftime appearance at the Super Bowl in February.

Williams and Ohanian had their first child, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., in 2017. Williams had won the Australian Open that year when she was about two months pregnant.

She returned to tennis and reached four more Grand Slam finals in 2018 and 2019, although she did not add to her total of 23 Grand Slam singles titles.

In August, Williams said she would retire from tennis after the US Open. But last October she said she was “not retired”. and that the chances of her coming back at some point were “very high.” Officially she is on the pension list.

In an essay in Vogue at the time of her retirement, she wrote, “If I were a man I wouldn’t be writing this because I would be playing and winning while my wife did the physical work of expanding our family.” Maybe I’d be more of a Tom Brady if I had the chance.” Brady, the star NFL quarterback, played until he was 45 and announced his retirement in February.

Williams, 41, has won 23 Grand Slam events since 1999 when she was 17: seven Australian Opens, three French Opens, seven Wimbledons and six US Opens. The total is one short of the record of 24 set by Margaret Court, although about half of Court’s victories in the amateur era came from before 1968.