Serena Williams announces she's pregnant in Snapchat post

Williams won the Australian Open during the early stages of her pregnancy…

Serena Williams appeared to announce she is pregnant today.

The 23-time grand slam singles champion posted a picture showing off a prominent bump on the social media app Snapchat with the caption "20 weeks".

Serena Williams is expecting!

The GOAT took to Snapchat to announce that she is 20 weeks pregnant. (via @serenawilliams/Snapchat) pic.twitter.com/7O9ub0VWVK

— espnW (@espnW) April 19, 2017

Williams, who won the Australian Open in January, announced her engagement to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in December.

Williams swiftly deleted her Snapchat post, with no official comment yet from her management.

The 35-year-old will return to world number one on Monday despite not playing since the Australian Open, 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 due to return at the Madrid Open next month.

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."

If Williams is pregnant, she will be the second top player in less than a year to take time away from the tour to have a baby.

Former world number one Victoria Azarenka gave birth to her first child Leo on December 20 and is planning to return to the sport at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford at the end of July.