The 44-year-old tennis legend will compete in both singles and doubles at the tournament starting June 29, nearly four years after her last singles match.
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Serena Williams will play singles at Wimbledon after receiving a wild card entry, the All England Club announced Sunday. The 44-year-old will compete in both the singles and doubles draws at the tournament, which begins June 29.
Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, last played singles at the 2022 U.S. Open, where she lost to Australia's Ajla Tomljanović in the third round. She has won the Wimbledon singles title seven times, with her most recent victory coming in 2016.
The wild card marks a dramatic escalation in Williams's comeback to professional tennis. She returned to competition earlier this month after nearly four years away, beginning with doubles matches on the grass-court season. She played a doubles match with partner Victoria Mboko at Queen's Club last week, winning one match before the pair withdrew after Mboko sustained a knee injury during a singles match.
Williams also competed in doubles at the Berlin Open, where she and partner Karolína Muchová were eliminated in the round of 16. She had already accepted a wild card invitation to play doubles at Wimbledon alongside her older sister Venus, 46, who is also a tennis legend.
The sisters have won six Wimbledon doubles titles together and 12 singles titles between them—Serena seven and Venus five. They last played together in doubles at Wimbledon in 2022.
Wimbledon officials announced Williams as the eighth and final player to receive a wild card in the ladies' singles category. Wild cards are typically awarded by tournament organizers to players whose rankings do not permit automatic entry and are usually reserved for home players, those with distinguished career records, or high-profile players returning from injury.
In a social media post, Wimbledon stated simply: "This is not a drill" and "Serena returns" when announcing the decision. Williams remains one Grand Slam title short of Margaret Court's long-standing women's record of 24 Grand Slam singles wins. She has also won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, all with Venus.
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