{"id":34774,"date":"2026-06-11T18:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T18:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/34774\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T18:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T18:08:08","slug":"serena-williams-pivots-quickly-to-new-playing-partner-for-berlin-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/34774\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams pivots quickly to new playing partner for Berlin Open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Serena Williams opted to let Nike break the news about her pro tennis comeback<\/a> at age 44 in two slick commercials. The abrupt end to her doubles foray at the HSBC Queen\u2019s Club Championships was more muted.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 playing partner Victoria Mboko injured her left knee in a fall during a singles match Wednesday. The turn of events restricted Williams\u2019 return to tennis to one match, a 7-6(2), 6-2 victory with the Canadian teenager over No. 3 seeds Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez. <\/p>\n

Shed no tears for Williams. She pivoted quickly and will partner with Czech tennis star Karol\u00edna Muchov\u00e1 in doubles at the grass-court WTA 500 Berlin Open<\/a> next week. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery tournament I add to my schedule right now feels special, and Berlin is no exception,\u201d Williams said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m excited to compete in front of the German fans and continue building momentum throughout the grass-court season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another commercial by Nike, her collaborator and business partner of more than two decades, probably isn\u2019t necessary. Williams\u2019 announcement that she would play for the first time since the 2022 U.S. Open came via a pair of clips from the athletic footwear and apparel conglomerate. <\/p>\n

One was captioned \u201cgood news travels fast.<\/a>\u201d Talk about buzzy. Her phone makes all sorts of sounds while she\u2019s working out on the court, ending with the text: \u201cGuess everybody heard the news,\u201d and her saying, \u201cI gotta change my number.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second is even zanier, a bit with LeBron James and Nike executives<\/a> pitching a film called \u201cThe GOAT\u2019s Goodbye\u201d to Williams, who wants none of it because she still wants to play. James says to the suits, \u201cYou\u2019re gonna have to find someone else,\u201d and Williams walks onto the court with racket in hand.<\/p>\n

Tagline: \u201cThe GOAT\u2019s back.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, her comeback is open-ended. Wimbledon begins June 29 and Williams has not indicated whether she will play. She has 14 titles in the prestigious tournament, six in doubles, one mixed doubles and seven in singles.<\/p>\n

Asked shortly after her lone doubles victory at the Queen\u2019s Club why she returned to the tour after a hiatus punctuated by the birth in 2023 of her second child, Adira River Ohanian, Williams shrugged.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, I had nothing better to do,\u201d she said with a smile<\/a>. \u201cI got tired of sitting at home. My kids are out of school for the summer, so why not?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams opted to let Nike break the news about her pro tennis comeback at age 44 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,32012,32013,1415,7352,32014,32009,32015,42,25920,23258,32016,30026,32010,28577,32011],"class_list":["post-34774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-open-next-week","tag-club-championships","tag-court","tag-double","tag-goat","tag-hsbc-queen","tag-lebron-james","tag-news","tag-nike","tag-second","tag-seed-erin-routliffe","tag-serena-williams","tag-slick-commercial","tag-tournament","tag-victory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}