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Advertisements featuring Serena Williams for GLP-1 medications provided by online pharmacy Ro will air on the Tennis Channel during her return to competitive tennis at the HSBC Championships in London this week, a network spokesperson confirmed to Front Office Sports.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion entered the WTA 500 grass tournament—which often serves as a warmup for Wimbledon—as a doubles wild card alongside 19-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko. The pair’s first match is scheduled for June 9 at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Williams joined Ro as a “celebrity patient ambassador” in a multi-year deal announced last summer to “normalize the use of GLP-1 medications for weight loss.” Her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is a Ro investor and has been on the company’s board since 2018.
In an interview with NBC’s Today show at the time, Williams revealed she lost 31 pounds while on a GLP-1 medication provided by Ro. She said she began taking the medication consistently in 2024 after failing to see results from diet and exercise following the birth of her two daughters.
“I was on and off [the medication] and now completely on,” she told Today in August 2025. “It was a really good decision I had to make for my life, you know, I tried everything.”
Williams hasn’t publicly disclosed which GLP-1 she was taking, but Ro offers several name-brand formulas, including Ozempic and Zepbound. Representatives for both Williams and Ro did not respond to requests for comment, including about whether she is still taking a weight-loss drug.
Williams’s return to competition was first speculated last December when she reentered the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s drug testing pool. Professional tennis adheres to codes set by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). A spokesperson for the ITIA told FOS that GLP-1 medications are currently permitted for use by players but are part of WADA’s monitoring program, meaning the drugs’ suitability is actively being assessed, and their status on the Prohibited List may or may not change in the future.
Ro promotions featuring Williams have become common across television, streaming, and social media, most prominently during Super Bowl LX. The company leveraged the tennis legend in its first Super Bowl ad this February, which depicted Williams dancing while saying she is “moving…and feeling better on Ro.”
Founded in 2017, Ro, which also added Charles Barkley to its roster of ambassadors earlier this year, has not disclosed how many patients are receiving GLP-1s through its platform, but an April press release said the company has “helped over 2 million people understand their benefits coverage” for the medication class. A Nov. 2025 study by the health policy organization KFF found roughly 1 in 8 (12%) Americans are currently taking a GLP-1 drug for weight loss, an increase from a study conducted 18 months earlier.
Weight-loss medications are a primary driver of the explosive growth that Ro and other online pharmacies are experiencing.
In a separate interview during Today’s third hour in January, Williams said that many of her health markers, including her cholesterol and blood sugar levels, are better than they were in 2021, her penultimate year playing regular professional tennis. She also described GLP-1 medications as a “lifetime thing.”
Williams last played in the 2022 U.S. Open, where she lost in the third round to Ajla Tomljanović. Her return to competition has sparked conversation and fanfare across the sports world—on Monday, Nike released an ad celebrating the moment that also features LeBron James.
Williams’s return is not limited to the HSBC Championships; she is already scheduled to play doubles with a to-be-determined partner at the Berlin Tennis Open from June 15–21. It’s not confirmed whether she will compete at Wimbledon, which begins June 29, but tournament organizers did not deny a possible Williams entry when asked by FOS.
