\u00a0<\/p>\n
LONDON \u2014 Serena Williams’s long-awaited return to competitive tennis was left in the balance Wednesday after doubles partner Victoria\u00a0Mboko\u00a0retired through injury in her opening singles match during the WTA tour event at Queen’s Club.<\/p>\n
Tennis great Williams, 44, made her eagerly-anticipated comeback at the London venue on Tuesday, securing a win alongside Canadian teenager\u00a0Mboko\u00a0in their first doubles match.<\/p>\n
The duo defeated third seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe 7-6 (7\/2), 6-2.<\/p>\n
They are now scheduled to face Leylah Fernandez and Laura Siegemund on Thursday in the grass-court event, a warm-up for Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mboko, who received a bye into the round of 16 for the Queen’s singles, was down a set but leading Karolina Pliskova 4-3 in the second when she slipped behind the baseline trying to return a shot.<\/p>\n The stumble effectively forced her into doing the splits, drawing a gasp from the crowd.<\/p>\n Mboko\u00a0was visibly upset as she spoke to the attending medical staff.<\/p>\n She got to her feet but the official reason subsequently given for her retirement was a left knee injury, with\u00a0Mboko\u00a0heard saying on television cameras “there is no stability right now”.<\/p>\n – ‘Such a shame’ –<\/p>\n Mboko\u00a0buried her face behind a towel as she continued to consult her team, before the umpire eventually announced her retirement, with the crowd giving the 19-year-old a sympathetic reception.<\/p>\n “It’s such a shame,” said Pliskova, adding: “Of course, this is not the way we want to win. Hopefully she is going to be fine for Wimbledon.”<\/p>\n If\u00a0Mboko, ninth in the women’s singles rankings, withdraws from the doubles, that will be the end of Williams’s tournament as well.<\/p>\n Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, stunned the sporting world a week ago with her shock announcement she would compete at Queen’s, where she is only playing in the doubles.<\/p>\n “It was so fun. I had so much fun playing with Victoria,” she said after Tuesday’s win.<\/p>\n Williams said her decision to return to competitive tennis for the first time since losing to Ajla Tomljanovic at the 2022 US Open was inspired by a desire to play in front of her children.<\/p>\n Her two young daughters, Olympia and Adira, as well as husband Alexis Ohanian were all courtside at Queen’s on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Williams is also scheduled to play doubles at the Berlin Open next week but has yet to decide if she wants to feature in the Wimbledon doubles.<\/p>\n But she played down the prospect of featuring in the singles at Wimbledon — where she has won the title seven times — when she faced the media on Sunday.<\/p>\n “Right now, no, I feel like I probably need to train a little bit more if I want to play singles and we’ll see if I get there, and if not, that’s not my journey right now,” said Williams.<\/p>\n But Iva Jovic, speaking after defeating Alexandra Eala 6-2, 6-2 to book her place in the Queen’s quarter-finals, believes it won’t be long before Williams returns to singles action.<\/p>\n “I think she will be back on the singles court very soon, as well. It’s exciting. She’s looking really good,” the 18-year-old American said.<\/p>\n Mboko\u00a0has called Williams her “idol”, and she said it was a memorable experience to play alongside her.<\/p>\n “Of course even knowing I could play with Serena I’m so grateful, first of all,” she said.<\/p>\n “I don’t play that much doubles, but I think sharing the court, I think I can learn a lot, even though we’re still competing. I just had so much fun today.\u201d AFP<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 LONDON \u2014 Serena Williams’s long-awaited return to competitive tennis was left in the balance Wednesday after doubles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1869,7111,2390,7112,1711,465,5527,4792,4791,7113,1706,409],"class_list":["post-17656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-victoria-mboko","tag-after","tag-be","tag-could","tag-cut","tag-doubles","tag-injury","tag-partner","tag-return","tag-serena","tag-short","tag-to","tag-victoria-mboko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17656","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=17656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}