Tennis
Serena Williams'
Comeback
Serena Williams' last singles match was at the 2022 U.S. Open. Foto Olimpik / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Serena Williams will play singles at Wimbledon 2026 after receiving a wild card entry, the tournament announced Sunday.
Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, last played singles at the 2022 U.S. Open, ending the first part of her career in a three-set loss to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanović.
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But after starting her tennis comeback with doubles appearances on grass, and receiving a wild card into the Wimbledon doubles event with sister and fellow legend of the sport, Venus, 46, the 44-year-old will return to the version of tennis she most dominated at the Grand Slam she has won seven times.
During news conferences at warm-up events in London and Berlin, Williams had been both philosophical and non-committal about the prospect of her playing singles.
During a news conference at Queen’s, where she won her first match back with Canada’s Victoria Mboko, Williams said: “I feel like I’m probably going to train a little bit more. I want to play singles and we’ll see if I get there and if not, that’s not my journey right now.”
At the Berlin Tennis Open, after a loss with Karolína Muchová of the Czech Republic, Williams was evasive when asked about a singles wild card into Wimbledon. At that time, the first batch of wild cards had been released — including Serena’s partnership with Venus in the doubles — but one wild card into the women’s singles draw remained. Now, it is Serena’s.
Williams always left the door open for a return — “evolving away” from tennis rather than using the word “retire” almost four years ago. Her children are now 8 and 3, and she has spoken about returning to the court so they can see her as her full self.
After spending six months in tennis’ anti-doping testing pool, Williams became eligible to enter events in February. When Williams’ name was seen on a list of players in that pool, last December, she dispelled word of a comeback — “Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy” — on social media.
But during an interview on the “Today” show in January, Williams was offered the chance to end speculation about her return. Instead, she laughed and responded: “If I want to put it to bed … Listen, I want to go to bed — it’s early.”
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On both occasions, representatives for Williams did not respond to a request for comment. They did not respond to a request for comment about her return to tennis at Queen’s, nor her Wimbledon plans.
Her last Wimbledon title came in 2016, when she and Venus also won the doubles event. That evolution away from tennis, after the 2022 U.S. Open, appeared to have brought to an end a glittering career. Williams holds 23 singles Grand Slam titles, the most of any woman in the Open Era, with 14 more in women’s doubles and two in mixed. To date, Williams has won 73 singles titles and earned just under $95 million in prize money; along the way, she has become one of the most significant crossover stars and cultural figures in the history of sports.
Williams didn’t just win: She remade how tennis is played, who plays it, who watches it, and how they feel about the sport and themselves
Now, she will face the biggest test of her comeback, with the possibility of facing the stars of today’s game, many of whom watched her, idolized her or saw her as a role model growing up, from Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Świątek to Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina. Her return to singles will also test one of her fundamental beliefs about her return to tennis, which she revealed at Queen’s in a news conference.
“I don’t need to win. I’ve won more than most people have in their whole lives. I don’t have anything to lose. Everything is just a gain.”
Analysis from senior tennis writer Charlie Eccleshare
Williams playing Wimbledon doubles, with Venus, four years after her last professional tennis match? That was already a huge story. But there was always a sense that something even bigger might be brewing.
Sure enough, Sunday night’s announcement of a singles wild card for Serena confirms that this comeback just got serious. Playing a Grand Slam doubles event at 44 is still a huge achievement, especially if she and Venus can win a match or two, but singles? That’s a whole different order of magnitude.
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As challenging as doubles is, Williams has already shown in her first couple of matches back — a win and an honorable defeat — that she’s ready to be competitive in that discipline. Singles is different, barely recognizable to doubles from a physical standpoint, and there were times in those doubles matches when Wiliams, entirely understandably, looked rusty when made to move extensively by her opponents.
Her serve is such a weapon, especially on grass, that Williams will be able to compensate for this to a certain extent, but it’s still a huge ask for her to be able to match the physical advantages that players who are mostly around half her age possess.
Her other biggest strength to counteract this may be her aura, which will likely lead to some players feeling overwhelmed by the experience of facing her. That was certainly the case in Williams’ first match back at Queen’s, when Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez both produced error-strewn performances in front of a packed crowd.
For her first-round opponent, a singles match against Williams on Centre Court will be even more intimidating, because this is going to be unlike anything the sport has ever seen. Martina Navratilova returning to the Wimbledon singles court in 2004 aged 47, after a 10-year absence, in 2004 is comparable, but 22 years on with a far wider media landscape, the hype will be even greater.
All things being equal, winning any matches at this year’s Wimbledon would be a monumental achievement. Because it’s Williams, there’ll be expectations that she can pull of miracles, but some perspective is important here. For Williams herself, who said a couple of weeks ago that “I don’t need to win. I don’t have anything to prove, I don’t have anything to lose and everything here is just to gain,” the message is that the appeal is in returning to the court and giving her kids the chance to see their mom play.
It will be fascinating to see how long that mindset lasts, because Williams is surely unlikely to hang around if results don’t go her way. Maybe they will at Wimbledon, maybe they won’t. But either way with singles now on the agenda as well as doubles, buckle up for what looks like being one of the wildest rides in tennis history.
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