{"id":18340,"date":"2026-06-12T14:01:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T14:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/18340\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T14:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T14:01:20","slug":"wimbledon-hails-serena-williams-return-as-wildcard-buzz-builds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/18340\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon hails Serena Williams\u2019 return as wildcard buzz builds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wimbledon organisers have described the return of 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams to competition as \u201cexciting,\u201d amid growing speculation that the American could receive a wildcard entry for this year\u2019s Championships.<\/p>\n<p>The 44-year-old stepped back onto the court this week for the first time in nearly four years, teaming up with Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko in doubles at the WTA event at Queen\u2019s Club.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon singles champion, has not confirmed whether she will feature at the All England Club, though reports suggest she is in line for a wildcard, most likely in doubles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guess what I can say is we can all see how much excitement Serena being back on a tennis court, and particularly back on a grass court, has created,\u201d Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club, said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so one can only imagine what that would be like at the Championships. The wildcard committee will make its decisions next week, and we\u2019ll be communicating those early next week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe has certainly created a fantastic buzz, and that is exciting for the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Williams won her first Wimbledon singles title in 2002 and her most recent in 2016. She has also won six women\u2019s doubles titles at the grass-court major.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd as and when at the wildcard meeting next week, I\u2019m sure it won\u2019t ignore her success at Wimbledon when making that decision,\u201d All England Club chair Debbie Jevans said.<\/p>\n<p>Wild cards are given to players whose rankings do not merit a place in the main draw and are often awarded to home players, top players returning from injury layoffs or those, such as Williams, with notable past success.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement will be made Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>                    <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/JN9LXf.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n                    The Daily Sabah Newsletter\n                <\/p>\n<p>\n                    Keep up to date with what\u2019s happening in Turkey,<br \/>\n                    it\u2019s region and the world.\n                <\/p>\n<p>                    SIGN ME UP\n                <\/p>\n<p>\n                    You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.<br \/>\n                    This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.\n                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wimbledon organisers have described the return of 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams to competition as \u201cexciting,\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4025,122,28,409,285],"class_list":["post-18340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wimbledon","tag-grand-slams","tag-serena-williams","tag-tennis","tag-victoria-mboko","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18340","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=18340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}