Serena Williams will complete another remarkable achievement if she can regain the world No.1 tennis ranking at the Qatar Open starting on Monday.
The holder of 15 grand slam titles has not occupied the top spot for more than two-and-a-half years after a series of injuries plunged her below the top 100, bringing predictions of a career end.
However, Williams was clearly the world’s best player again during the second half of last year when she won the Wimbledon, Olympic, US Open and WTA Championship season-end titles.
The pinnacle seemed within reach until she was struck by multiple setbacks during last month’s Australian Open.
Williams turned her right ankle in her opening round, hurt her back while running for a drop shot during her second, and exited in the quarter-finals after one of the most startling defeats of her career, to Sloane Stephens, then outside the top 30.
It was Williams’ first loss to a younger American and also, she asserted, her “worst two weeks”.
It will have made her keener than ever to return to something nearer her true self during the event in Doha, her first outing since that debacle.
She is seeded second, and could have a semi-final with Maria Sharapova, the French Open champion who gave her a very hard final in their last encounter, at the WTA Championships in Istanbul three months ago.
Sharapova has a particularly tough quarter, which contains two grand slam winners – Samantha Stosur of Australia and Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, and a former world No.1, Jelena Jankovic of Serbia.
A further incentive is that Williams is only 355 ranking points behind Victoria Azarenka, the world No.1.
Much will depend on the extent of Williams’ physical recovery.
She reckoned her condition was the worst it had been in a grand slam last month, and she will want to show she is not facing another injury-ravaged sequence.
Her swollen ankle looked frighteningly large by the end of the tournament and, if Williams has inhibitions about further damage, it could make it hard to perform at her best.
But if she does, she will quickly become the unofficial favourite.
Older sister Venus withdrew from Doha with a lower back injury, while China’s Li Na is also an absentee with an ankle injury suffered in her Australian Open final loss to Azarenka.