{"id":972,"date":"2026-06-01T19:41:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=972"},"modified":"2026-06-01T19:41:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:41:48","slug":"serena-williams-44-returning-to-pro-tennis-ahead-of-wimbledon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=972","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams, 44, returning to pro tennis ahead of Wimbledon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>By ANDREW DAMPF<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>PARIS (AP) \u2014 Serena Williams is returning to professional tennis at the age of 44 after nearly four years away from the sport.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=970\">Skelton: My pick for California governor is \u2026 I\u2019m still working on it<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion has accepted a wild-card invitation to play doubles at the upcoming Queen\u2019s Club grass-court tournament in London, the WTA Tour announced Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Williams also made a post on social media with the caption, \u201cGuess everybody heard the news.\u201d The post had a video with her phone ringing, during which she said, \u201cI got to change my number.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Queen\u2019s Club tournament starts next Monday and the WTA said Williams will play \u201cwith a partner to be announced in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A return on grass will raise speculation that Williams also plans to compete at Wimbledon, which starts June 28. She\u2019s won seven singles titles at the All England Club.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQueen\u2019s Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter,\u201d Williams said in a statement. \u201cGrass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career and I\u2019m excited to be back competing on one of the sport\u2019s most iconic stages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Williams has not competed since bidding farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open. At the time, Williams said she didn\u2019t want to use the word \u201cretiring\u201d and instead declared that she was \u201cevolving\u201d away from tennis.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cSerena brought the game to another level and it is incredible for the sport that she\u2019s pushing the boundaries and coming back,\u201d said Martina Navratilova, the previous oldest former No. 1 to launch a comeback, at 43 years, 10 months.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, who has also won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, became eligible to compete in February after re-registering with tennis\u2019 mandatory anti-doping program six months earlier \u2014 which is the first step toward a comeback.<\/p>\n<p>Four-time major champion Naomi Osaka, who beat Williams in the 2018 U.S. Open final for her first major title, was excited at the prospect.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will bring people to watch tennis,\u201d Osaka said Thursday at the French Open. \u201cI\u2019m going to be tuned into the first match, for sure. I think a lot of people are. Everyone knows Serena and Venus were my role models growing up, so it\u2019s going to be cool to see her on the grounds again.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Williams recently posted a video on Instagram showing herself training on a hard court with her daughter: \u201cRumor has it\u2026I got a new trainer,\u201d Williams said in the post.<\/p>\n<p>Williams\u2019 second daughter was born in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Williams\u2019 older sister, Venus, is still playing occasionally at 45.<\/p>\n<h4>Gauff never got to play Williams<\/h4>\n<p>\u201cOne of my biggest regrets was not being able to play her,\u201d defending French Open champion Coco Gauff said in Paris. \u201cIt would be cool for this sport to have a legend back playing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eighteen-year-old American player Iva Jovic also sounded thrilled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have never seen Serena in real life,\u201d Jovic said. \u201cObviously I grew up watching her. In my entire childhood she was dominating tennis, so it\u2019s going to be incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=968\">Too late to mail your ballot? Voters are being urged to send them early<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Added fellow American player Madison Keys: \u201cSerena Williams playing tennis is only good for tennis. Let\u2019s be real. We all want to watch Serena play tennis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, you literally get to watch history every single time she takes the court,\u201d Keys added. \u201cSo why not watch more?\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>Davenport says Williams practiced with current players<\/h4>\n<p>Former No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, speaking at Roland Garros, said Williams\u2019 goal \u201chas always been to be the best.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer mindset has always been to not settle for mediocrity. So I think we have to assume that she\u2019s coming back because she feels she\u2019s in a position where she can actually make an impact immediately,\u201d Davenport said. \u201cIt\u2019s naive to expect right off the bat she\u2019s going to be winning tournaments. But I think she feels like she could work her way into it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Davenport said she knows that some current women\u2019s players went down to Florida to practice with Williams recently.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s admitted to that, but I do know that some of them were,\u201d Davenport said. \u201cSo I think she has kind of a handle on where the level is. But I don\u2019t know if she\u2019s been playing a two-hour singles match, right? We\u2019ll have to see how she can handle that physically.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>McEnroe made a doubles comeback at 47<\/h4>\n<p>John McEnroe said Williams isn\u2019t \u201ccoming back not to win\u201d and suggested Williams could play Wimbledon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s not getting any younger but she\u2019s Serena Williams so I bet you she would tell me about wanting to win the whole damn thing,\u201d McEnroe said in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>McEnroe was 47 when he returned after 12 years of retirement and won a tour-level doubles tournament with partner Jonas Bjorkman.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPhysically, I still had it for doubles, so she definitely could still have it for doubles, there\u2019s no question about that. She could win anything (in doubles),\u201d McEnroe said. \u201cThe singles is more difficult, so we\u2019ll have to wait and see what she decides to do, maybe she\u2019s waiting to the (U.S.) Open. I\u2019m not really sure what the plan is. She hasn\u2019t called me to tell me the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>Women returned to Queen\u2019s after more than 50 years<\/h4>\n<p>A women\u2019s tournament rejoined the men\u2019s competition at Queen\u2019s last year after an absence of more than 50 years, meaning Williams will be making her debut at the historic grass-court tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWomen\u2019s tennis made a historic return to the Queen\u2019s Club last year, and now we have an icon of the game stepping back on to court at this prestigious venue,\u201d Queen\u2019s tournament director Laura Robson said. \u201cIt\u2019s very exciting for the tournament and the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=966\">Our not-so-early college basketball Top 25 for 2026-27: Florida is the new No. 1 as Illinois and Gonzaga rise, Louisville slips<\/a><\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion has accepted a wild-card invitation to play doubles at the upcoming Queen\u2019s Club grass-court tournament in London, the WTA Tour announced Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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