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Serena Williams will make a stunning return to singles competition at Wimbledon after being announced as the tournament’s final wildcard on Sunday.
Wimbledon will mark Williams’s first singles appearance in nearly four years after retiring from the sport at the 2022 US Open and it marks a dramatic escalation in her comeback.
Williams, a 23-time grand slam singles champion and seven-time Wimbledon singles champion, resumed her doubles career at the beginning of the grass-court season this month after months of speculation. The 44-year-old had already received a wildcard into the ladies’ doubles draw at Wimbledon alongside her 46-year-old sister, Venus.
However, she had remained coy about whether she planned to return to singles. Asked this past week in Berlin about whether she would take a singles wildcard, Williams responded: “That’s the question of the hour, right? I don’t know. I don’t know. I wonder why there’s … I don’t know,” she said.
She left the announcement to the last moment. The All England Club (AELTC) has spent the week allocating its various wildcards and as of Sunday morning, only one wildcard in either draw remained. The ladies’ qualifying singles draw will be published on Monday, meaning the AELTC had to decide on the recipient of the final wildcard before the draw.
Williams had been victorious in her doubles comeback match alongside Victoria Mboko at the Queen’s Club, but Mboko was forced to withdraw from the tournament due to the significant knee injury she suffered in her singles match. Williams then competed alongside Karolina Muchova in Berlin this week, with the pair losing in their opening match, but she declared herself satisfied with her level. She has spent the rest of this week training on the grass courts of the All England Club in advance of her return.
Although her first career eventually ended on a positive note, with Williams sensationally defeating the then world No 2, Anett Kontaveit, at the US Open before falling in a dramatic three-set battle to Ajla Tomljanovic, her Wimbledon career had ended badly earlier that summer. After suffering a serious hamstring injury by falling on a slippery Centre Court in her first round match in 2021, Williams was defeated in the first round of Wimbledon 2022 by the world No 115 Harmony Tan, a loss that many believe played a part in motivating her to return to Wimbledon. She has not won a singles match at the tournament since 2019.
Williams will now have an opportunity to end her Wimbledon career on a different note, but it remains to be seen what level she will be able to compete at in singles. Singles requires far more movement and physicality than doubles, making it a much more difficult task for a 44-year-old. As has been the case for more than 30 years, the American refuses to shy away from a great challenge.
