Serena Williams appeared to drop a major hint that she is pregnant on Wednesday.
The 23-time grand slam singles champion posted a picture of herself in a yellow swimsuit, showing off a prominent bump, on the social media app Snapchat.
It came with the caption "20 weeks", but was then deleted without explanation. There has been no official comment yet from her management.
Williams won the Australian Open in January and would have been pregnant at the time of that success, if she is now at the 20-week stage.
She announced her engagement to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in December and has not played on tour since her grand slam success Down Under, when she overtook Steffi Graf to claim the outright Open era record for slam singles titles.
She pulled out of the recent tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami citing a knee injury but is scheduled to return at the Madrid Open next month.
The 35-year-old will return to world number one on Monday despite her recent inaction but she is unlikely to play again this year if the pregnancy is confirmed.
Williams has made no secret of her desire to have a family.
Speaking to Glamour magazine last summer, she said: "I definitely want to have kids one day. That's always something I've wanted as long as I could remember. And the older I get, the more I'm like, 'I'm too young!'.
"Hopefully I'll be able to mature one of these days, get serious, and at least have them pretty fast."
Serena's snap suggests that she won the Australian Open without dropping a set while pregnant. pic.twitter.com/ltPndJRJBq
— Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham) April 19, 2017
