Serena Williams’s comeback to professional tennis took a dramatic twist when she made a late decision to accept a wild card into the singles event at Wimbledon.
At 44, Williams has not played a singles match since she was eliminated from the 2022 US Open – supposedly her final tournament – by Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic. She has only had two outings on the doubles court to test her readiness.
The singles format will test Williams’s ability to cover the court, which looked limited at times when she and Victoria Mboko scored a doubles victory at Queen’s Club a couple of weeks ago on her long-awaited professional return.
But Williams – who had already entered the Wimbledon ladies’ doubles event in partnership with sister Venus – has bulletproof self-belief. Insiders from the commentary box report that she was messaging some of her contemporaries during September’s US Open, and expressing confidence in her ability to compete with the modern generation.
Two weeks ago, Williams had been asked directly about the possibility of entering the Wimbledon singles draw. At that time, she had prevaricated.
“I can’t say yeah, I can’t say no,” she replied. “Right now, no. I feel like I probably need to train a little bit more if I want to play singles. We’ll see if I get there. And if not... that’s not my journey right now.”
Despite winning her comeback match against Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe by a 7-6, 6-2 scoreline, Williams did not get a second chance to play at Queen’s Club because her partner slipped over during a singles appearance the following day, incurring a knee injury that ended Mboko’s grass-court season almost before it had begun.
From there, Williams flew to Berlin, where she and Czech player Karolina Muchova lost their opening match to Routliffe and Giuliana Olmos – a 6-4, 6-4 defeat which Muchova blamed on a lack of “chemistry”.
After the match, Williams was asked what had inspired her to re-enter tennis’ anti-doping programme in August, thus making it possible for her to compete professionally six months later.
“I think I was really motivated by what Venus was doing that year,” Williams replied. “In the [US] Open, I thought she played really well. Getting to the quarter-finals in doubles, I thought, was really interesting.”
She also said that “watching [skier] Lindsey [Vonn]” had been an influential experience, adding: “All these women [have been] coming back and being so gosh darn good. I just felt: why not?
“I did feel just motivated after the Olympics and everything.”
In the circumstances, it might seem remarkable that Williams’s inspiration survived a horrific crash – just seconds into February’s Olympic downhill race – which left 41-year-old Vonn with a broken right ankle and complex fractures in her left tibia and fibula. Happily, though, tennis is not such a dangerous sport.