Serena Williams to play singles at Wimbledon via wild card

Seven-time Wimbledon singles champion Serena Williams has accepted a wild-card invitation and will compete at the All England Club in singles and doubles, the tournament announced on Sunday.

Williams, 44, will compete with her sister Venus in doubles, as the pair also accepted a wild-card entry into that draw.

The tournament gets underway on June 29. The draws will be announced this Friday.

After a four-year absence, Serena Williams returned to the tour in doubles at the HSBC Championships earlier this month. She partnered with 19-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko and the duo pulled an upset in the first round, defeating the third-ranked tandem of Nicole Melichar-Martinez and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe.

But Mboko suffered a leg injury in a subsequent singles match in London and the duo had to withdraw from the tournament.

Williams then teamed up with Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic at the Berlin Open earlier this week, but they were defeated by Routliffe and Mexico’s Giuliana Olmos in the first round.

Williams’ last singles match occurred at the 2022 U.S. Open when she fell to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic in the third round.

She last won Wimbledon in singles in 2016, defeating Germany’s Angelique Kerber in the finals.

The Williams sisters won six Wimbledon doubles titles, and the last of those also occurred in 2016.

When she restarted the latest chapter of her career earlier this month, Serena Williams left the door open to returning to singles play.

“I can’t say no right now,” she said. “I feel like I probably need to train a little bit more if I want to play singles, and we will see if I get there, and if not … that’s not my journey right now.”