Australian Open news - Time to ask the unthinkable question: Will Serena Williams win her 24th Slam?

Of the majors she has played since giving birth to her daughter in September 2017, Serena Williams has, by and large, an exemplary record. Reaching Grand Slam finals deep into your 30s is nothing short of miraculous. To do it while barely playing warm-up tournaments and juggling motherhood and business commitments is a testament to the skill and determination that defines her career.

But three years on from her last Grand Slam triumph, a dramatic win over her sister Venus in Australia, could it be that Serena's best chances to add to her haul and equal Margaret Court's long-standing record of 24 have passed her by?

The facets that defined her game seem to have dissipated. The crisp, unmatchable hitting has lost some of its pop, the ice-cool mentality that saw her beat opponents before a stroke was played has gone and she has often looked unable to compete with some of the younger players on tour.

When she made her first tournament appearance after Olympia's birth at Indian Wells in 2018, she admitted she was "on a scale of one to Serena, still on the S”. Her Grand Slam comeback at that year's French Open was curtailed by fitness issues, forcing her to withdraw from her fourth round match against Maria Sharapova.

The issues were still in evidence at Wimbledon that year. She reached the final with a fairly easy path, playing two qualifiers, three other unseeded players and Julia Goerges, who was clearly overwhelmed by the occasion of her first major semi-final. In the showpiece itself, she came up against top-class opposition for the first time and was played off the court by Angelique Kerber, whose superior levels of fitness showed.

The Serena of old would have bludgeoned a counter-puncher in Kerber's mould off the court but looked lost against the German. It was a similar in the Wimbledon final the following year, when Simona Halep played the game of her life and Serena was unable to find any sort of response. It was only the Romanian's third win against her and it came on her least preferred surface and Slam.

But Williams' defeats have not just come against quick players with fine defensive skills. In the 2018 US Open final, when facing Naomi Osaka in the final, she looked off the pace, with her serve failing her and her ground stokes wild. The match is remembered for Williams' confrontation with the umpire and Osaka's tears as boos rained down from the New York crowd but it was a contest where Williams was rarely, if ever, competitive. Last year in Melbourne, she came unstuck against Karolina Pliskova, a player whose game is built on a big serve and aggressive shots.

The result is that the aura around her is no longer the same. When she faced Osaka, the young Japanese player, though making marked progress, was merely a breakthrough star who refused to wilt in the face of pressure. The scenario was similar but all the more extreme in the following year's final against Bianca Andreescu, who was not only a teenager but one yet to play a full season, so bad had the injuries that had plagued her young career been. Yet again the more experienced player found herself outdone by less august opposition once more.

This year's Australian Open could have been so different. Williams entered the tournament with a tournament win under her belt and extra time on court courtesy of her singles title and doubles final run in Auckland before the tournament. She had a favourable draw that had opened up for her after Caroline Wozniacki suffered a shock loss to Ons Jabeur. Her third round exit at the hands of Wang Qiang, neither a prodigy nor a seasoned top player, represented a nadir she herself acknowledged.

"It is what it is. It’s not about the tournament, I can’t play like that. I literally can’t do that again, that’s unprofessional. It’s not cool."

Eurosport expert Mats Wilander believes that she is suffering from a mentality issue, which her infamous meltdown against Osaka in New York in 2018 would point to.

"I think there’s a little anxiety from Serena that she has to finish the point before she gets on the back foot and defends too much," he said.

It could be that Williams just wants it too much and that is hampering her bid to make history.

There can be no doubting Serena's commitment to winning that 24th Grand Slam she so craves. It would have been easy to bow out of the game with her Melbourne triumph against Venus three years ago as her final match, citing her commitment to raising a family, not least after she suffered complications during birth and postpartum depression.

But her game is simply not where it was, she has shown scant evidence that she can handle the rigours of two straight weeks of tennis and, though it would be fitting for her to walk away with the all-time record, it may be time to accept that she may fail in her attempts.