DHAKA: Tennis great Serena Williams and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian are engaged.
A spokesperson for Ohanian confirmed that he popped the question while the two were vacationing in Rome. Williams first announced the news herself in a Reddit post on its “r/isaidyes” forum.
“I came home/A little late/Someone had a bag packed for me/And a carriage awaited” Williams said in her Reddit post, which was written like a poem and had a cartoon of the couple at the top.
“Destination: Rome/To escort me to my very own ‘charming’/Back to where our stars first collided/And now it was full circle/At the same table we first met by chance/This time he made it not by chance/But by choice/Down on one knee/He said 4 words/And/r/isaidyes.”
Ohanian also announced the engagement on his Facebook page, linking to Williams’ Reddit post and adding, “She said yes.”
Williams and Ohanian, who have been dating since the fall of 2015, have mostly kept their romance out of the spotlight, though she does post pictures of them on her Instagram account from time to time, reports the CNN.
Williams is preparing for the start of the 2017 tennis season, having lost her world No. 1 ranking to Germany’s Angelique Kerber this year.
The 35-year-old needs just one more grand slam title to move past Steffi Graf and claim the record for a women’s player in the post-1969 Open Era of the pro game.
The first major of the new year is the Australian Open -- a tournament Williams has won on six occasions.
Her first competitive outing will be in Auckland, New Zealand, where she arrived Friday with her older sister Venus.
BDST: 2017 HRS, DEC 30, 2016
BD
