Serena Williams suffered a straight-sets defeat in the Berlin Open doubles on Tuesday, hours after the confirmation of her return to Wimbledon to play alongside her older sister, Venus.\n<\/p>\n
Williams and Czech doubles partner Karolina Muchova fell to Mexico\u2019s Giuliana Olmos and Erin Routliffe, of New Zealand, 6-4, 6-4.\n<\/p>\n
The duo lost the opening set after Williams was broken in her second service game.\n<\/p>\n
They were broken on Muchova\u2019s serve midway through the second set\u00a0and failed to find a way back into the contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt pretty good out there. I felt actually more nimble and more sturdy and quicker than the first match in Queens,\u201d Williams said after the match.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt overall pretty good, just physically and quickness. I think you need a lot of quickness on grass.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The match was the 44-year-old Williams\u2019 second after her shock comeback announcement earlier in June.<\/p>\n
She won her first match back at Queen\u2019s Club last Monday, but her tournament ended due to an injury to doubles partner Victoria Mboko.\n<\/p>\n
Asked about choosing Muchova as a doubles partner, Williams laughed and said, \u201cCzech players have given me nothing but trouble throughout my whole career. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo if you can\u2019t beat them, join them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion stepped away from tennis in 2022 but announced a comeback earlier in June, saying her decision came from a desire to play in front of her two young daughters.\n<\/p>\n
Showing glimpses of the powerful game that allowed her to dominate women\u2019s tennis for two decades, Williams understandably lacked rhythm, particularly early, after a near four-year absence.\n<\/p>\n
She got better as the match went on, improving her footwork and showing the powerful serve and trademark forehand, which were cornerstones of her game.\n<\/p>\n
With one final singles wildcard slot remaining for Wimbledon, which starts on June 29, but Williams shot down speculation she could also make an individual return.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think I\u2019m ready for singles?\u201d Williams asked reporters. \u201cI need to get to work.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The last of her 23 Grand Slam victories came in the 2017 Australian Open. She last won Wimbledon in 2016.\n<\/p>\n
The Williams sisters have won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles together, including six at Wimbledon.\n<\/p>\n
AFP\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams suffered a straight-sets defeat in the Berlin Open doubles on Tuesday, hours after the confirmation of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,51827,44973,190,55488,55489,51638,2581,2810,55490,55491,51703],"class_list":["post-109736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-open","tag-doubles","tag-germany","tag-grand-slam","tag-professional-tennis","tag-serena-williams","tag-sports-news","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-comeback","tag-venus-williams","tag-wimbledon"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116763875331737896","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}