UPDATE: Agent Denies Serena's Tennis Inactivity for 2006

My friend (and doubles partner) Delmar Thomas gave me a heads up to an ESPN.com story where tennis agent Jill Smoller is denying the Guardian newspaper's report (blogged about here earlier) that Serena Williams will not be playing on the WTA Tour for the rest of 2006.

"Serena will be in L.A. [Wednesday], and we plan to release something about the next few tournaments, but as far as I know, she has not said she won't play the rest of the year," Williams' agent, Jill Smoller, told The Miami Herald. "I don't know where that came from." Smoller made similar remarks to ESPN.

The response from the tennis blogosphere to the original report has been fairly muted so far (nothing on On The Baseline), so it should be interesting to see if this story continues to have legs. And, of course, there are three more grand slam tournaments coming up before September. Venus Williams is the defending Wimbledon champion, and is currently entered in the J&S Cup starting in Warsaw, Poland on May 1.