Tennis World Champion Serena Williams has some fantastic news

Serena Williams is the most successful female tennis player of the Open era and she has just announced some very exciting news.

Just 12 weeks after she won her 23rd Grand Slam in Australia, she has revealed that she is pregnant and the baby is due this autumn.

The exciting news came when the hugely successful tennis player posted a photo on Snapchat with a message saying '20 weeks'. The photo was quickly deleted, but of course it wasn't long before screenshots began to circulate on social media.

The news was later confirmed by one of Serena's representatives.

If Serena is indeed 20 weeks pregnant then she must have been in the early stages of pregnancy when she won the Australian Open in January. Very impressive! Winning the Australian Open also meant that she beat Steffi Graf's previous record for the most Grand Slam singles titles, taking her into the record books.

Messages of congratulations have come in on Twitter from Andy Roddick and former world number one Chris Evert, who is now a mother of three.

Serena doesn't reveal much about her private life, however in December 2016 her engagement to Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, was announced.

Alexis posted a link on Facebook to Serena's Reddit post saying, '(She said yes.)'.

The Reddit post was of an drawing of Serena wearing her tennis gear and Alexis on one knee proposing, with the words 'Future Mrs. Kn0thing' above them.

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With a baby on the way Serena is not expected to play in any more competitions this year, however many outlets are reporting that she is likely to return to tennis in 2018.

Congratulations Serena and Alexis!