Serena Williams is on the verge of a highly unexpected comeback. The 44-year-old tennis legend has been awarded a wildcard into the Wimbledon singles draw and has agreed to compete in the London tournament.
Williams received the final spot in the women’s main draw. She had already been granted a wildcard for the doubles event, where she will play alongside her older sister Venus. The comeback comes after Williams returned to competitive action earlier this month following a four-year absence and has so far played two doubles matches. When recently asked whether she was also considering a return to singles at Wimbledon, she replied with a smile: “Do you think I’m ready for singles? I need to start working.”
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Serena Williams is one of the greatest players in tennis history
(Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
Williams is one of the greatest players in tennis history, if not the greatest. She has won the Wimbledon singles title seven times — in 2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016 — and holds 14 Wimbledon titles overall, including six women’s doubles titles and one mixed doubles title.
Across her illustrious career, Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, one shy of Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24. She spent 319 weeks ranked world No. 1, won 73 WTA singles titles, and completed a career “Golden Slam” in both singles and doubles, winning all four Grand Slam tournaments as well as an Olympic gold medal.
Her most recent singles appearance at Wimbledon came in 2022, when she entered on a wildcard and came within two points of defeating Harmony Tan before losing in a deciding-set tiebreak. A year earlier, her last singles win at Wimbledon came in 2019, when she reached the final and lost to Romania’s Simona Halep.
Williams has never formally announced her retirement. After the 2022 US Open, in what was then considered her final match, she said she was “evolving away” from tennis, a phrasing that left the door open.
According to Williams, one of the main motivations for her return is the desire for her two daughters to see her play. Her eldest, Olympia, was born in 2017, and in 2023 she gave birth to her second daughter, Adira.