Williams returning to tennis<\/a><\/p>\nThe greatest women’s champion of the Open Era is returning to tennis after almost four years away, accepting a wildcard into the doubles at the Queen’s Club tournament next week.<\/p>\n
Widely regarded as the greatest female player of all time with 23 major singles titles and 319 weeks as world number one, Williams never officially retired.<\/p>\n
Instead, she said she was “evolving” away from tennis.<\/p>\n
But when she lost to Ajla Tomljanovi\u0107 in \u200cthe third round of the US Open in September 2022 and bade an emotional farewell, few thought she would return to write another chapter in a sporting story \u2060that has inspired millions.<\/p>\n
A few miles down the road from Wimbledon, where she won seven singles crowns, Williams stepped out in late-afternoon sunshine in front of a packed stand, and at times it looked like she had never been away.<\/p>\n
Williams looked focused as she began her warm-up for the match, going through her routines as her incredible career record was read out.<\/p>\n
Evening doubles matches at Queen’s are usually when ticket holders drift off to enjoy the hospitality at the elite west London club, but there was not a vacant seat, and the members’ balcony was heaving as the American strolled out on the pristine grass of the Andy \u200bMurray \u200cArena.<\/p>\n
“Let’s go, Serena”, rang out from the stands as she belted away a typically aggressive \u2060volley in the opening game, and there was a clenched fist as they won \u200cto go 1-0 up.<\/p>\n
The fearsome serve that once struck \u200cfear into opponents was as smooth as ever, and Williams launched a 120 miles per hour bullet later in the first set, which she and Mboko edged on a tiebreak.<\/p>\n
Williams had already won \u200cseven major singles titles before 19-year-old Mboko was born, but the chemistry between the duo was obvious as they warmed to the task, clearly enjoying the occasion and each other’s company.<\/p>\n
“She was moving great,” Mboko said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There was one shot she hit and I was like ‘Oh my \u200cgosh, she’s got \u200bit.”’<\/p>\n
The second set was more comfortable as \u2060Williams clocked up the 1,051st Tour-level win of her remarkable career \u2014 across singles and women’s doubles \u2014 fittingly by holding serve with the help of two aces.<\/p>\n
Fans flocked from far and wide to watch the reappearance of a trailblazer who took women’s tennis to a new level.<\/p>\n
Few would disagree with that sentiment after watching Williams get back in the groove.<\/p>\n
Williams won 14 major doubles titles with her older sister Venus.<\/p>\n
She will also play doubles in Berlin and could make a remarkable return to Wimbledon this month.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams has stolen the show at Queen’s Club, as the American icon marked her eagerly awaited return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[4355,602,2339,774,122,28,409,285,282],"class_list":["post-16939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-victoria-mboko","tag-comeback","tag-england","tag-london","tag-queens-club","tag-serena-williams","tag-tennis","tag-victoria-mboko","tag-wimbledon","tag-wta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}