{"id":1042139,"date":"2026-06-22T04:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T04:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1042139\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T04:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T04:40:20","slug":"serena-williams-will-play-singles-at-wimbledon-in-her-tennis-comeback-at-age-44","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1042139\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams will play singles at Wimbledon in her tennis comeback at age 44"},"content":{"rendered":"

(AP) – It\u2019s been talked about ever since\u00a0Serena Williams<\/a>\u00a0announced nearly three weeks ago that she was\u00a0returning to professional tennis<\/a>\u00a0after almost four years away from the sport.<\/p>\n

Still, seeing the single-sentence announcement from The All England Club that the 23-time Grand Slam champion will play singles at\u00a0Wimbledon<\/a>\u00a0was stunning nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\u201cSerena Williams (USA) receives the final ladies\u2019 singles wild card,\u201d read the key line in Sunday\u2019s announcement, which was issued eight days before the grass-court Grand Slam begins.<\/p>\n

\"SerenaSerena Williams of the United States, hits a return as she and playing partner Victoria Mboko of Canada play against Nicole Melichar-Martinez of Canada and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand during their first round doubles match at the Queen’s Club tennis championships in London, Tuesday, June 9, 2026.(Alberto Pezzali | AP Photo\/Alberto Pezzali)<\/p>\n

At age 44, Williams will actually play both singles and doubles at Wimbledon after already accepting\u00a0a wild card for the doubles competition with older sister Venus.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a drill,\u201d Wimbledon said on its social media accounts Sunday.<\/p>\n

Commented the WTA Tour, \u201cName a more iconic return\u2026we\u2019ll wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wimbledon held open the eighth and final women\u2019s singles wild card spot until Williams made up her mind. As recently as earlier this week after losing a doubles match in Berlin, she appeared to be waffling over the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my gosh, there are some left?\u201d she replied when she was told there was still a wild card spot open. Wild cards are special invitations handed out by tournament organizers, which allow former champions and others access to the main draw without the necessary entry qualifications. But then she mused about her readiness for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think I\u2019m ready for singles?\u201d she asked a reporter and then turned to doubles partner Karolina Muchova to ask what she thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I would be interested in it,\u201d the Czech player responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the question of the hour, right?\u201d Williams said. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. I wonder why there\u2019s \u2014 I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, now that Williams has made up her mind, the big remaining question is how she can physically handle singles play after so long.<\/p>\n

Serena\u2019s most-recent singles match<\/a>\u00a0was a loss to Ajla Tomljanovic in the third round of the 2022 U.S. Open. At the time, she said she didn\u2019t want to use the word \u201cretiring\u201d and instead declared that she was \u201cevolving\u201d away from tennis. Her second daughter was born in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust finished a mean game of duck duck goose,\u201d\u00a0Williams said on X<\/a>\u00a0after the wild card announcement.<\/p>\n

Of Williams\u2019 23 Grand Slam titles in singles, seven have come at Wimbledon: in 2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016. She\u2019s also won 14 Grand Slams in doubles, all with Venus, and six of them at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

Serena also swept the singles and doubles (with Venus) titles at the 2012 London Olympics, when the tennis competition was held on the hallowed grass of the All England Club.<\/p>\n

At her last Wimbledon appearance in 2022,\u00a0Serena was beaten in the opening round by 115th-ranked Harmony Tan<\/a>\u00a0in her first match since having to stop less than a set into her opening contest at the All England Club because of\u00a0an injury the year before<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Serena won a doubles match with partner Victoria Mboko<\/a>\u00a0at Queen\u2019s Club last week but then the pair had to withdraw after Mboko injured her knee in a singles match.<\/p>\n

In another doubles match at the Berlin Open on Tuesday,\u00a0Serena and Muchova were beaten<\/a>\u00a0by Giuliana Olmos and Erin Routliffe.<\/p>\n

As of Sunday, Serena had not entered the singles draws of any grass-court tuneup tournaments before Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

She will learn who her first-round opponent is on Friday when the singles draws for Wimbledon are held.<\/p>\n

While she\u2019s No. 593 in the doubles rankings courtesy of her victory last week, Serena has no singles ranking after being away for so long.<\/p>\n

Iga Swiatek is the defending Wimbledon champion<\/a>, while\u00a0Aryna Sabalenka is ranked No. 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Because Serena has no ranking, she could potentially face Swiatek, Sabalenka or any other top-ranked player in the opening rounds.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis:\u00a0https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(AP) – It\u2019s been talked about ever since\u00a0Serena Williams\u00a0announced nearly three weeks ago that she was\u00a0returning to professional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1042140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5311],"tags":[46747,92287,10095,1068,101159,49,978,659,14935,286967,286966],"class_list":["post-1042139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-grand-slam","tag-professional-tennis","tag-serena-williams","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-comeback","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-venus-williams","tag-when-will-serena-williams-make-her-comeback","tag-wilmbledon"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116791924526562737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1042140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}