For the two long weeks that have passed since her return to the courts of the professional tennis tournament at the Royal Club, the clock has been ticking in Serena Williams’ head. She has already committed to returning to doubles at 44 after four years away from the sport, but in doubles a player only needs to cover half the court with the help of a partner. The real question was whether she would dare take a chance in singles again against the best tennis players in the world.
Williams’ decision to speed up her comeback by competing in the singles at Wimbledon turned out to be just as last-minute as it seemed. She was announced as the final entrant in the women’s singles draw on Sunday, June 21, the day before the qualifying draw took place. “I had until Monday to make a decision. I think it was like Sunday. I just wasn’t sure until now. To be honest, I’m still not even sure, but we’ll see,” Williams says, smiling, at her pre-tournament press conference.
Regardless of whether she gains clarity in her decision by the time she goes to court, there will be no turning back. Williams, a 14-time Wimbledon champion in women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles and a two-time Olympic gold medalist at the London 2012 Olympics, will return to Center Court on Tuesday afternoon to face Australia’s Maia Joynt in her first singles match since she “retired” from competitive play following her US Open retirement 2022.
While she worked hard on court to get up to speed in singles and contemplated returning to Wimbledon without a singles warm-up tournament, Williams realized she simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity: “It’s not every day Wimbledon gives someone a wildcard,” she says. “I could probably name a few people. I happened to be one of them. I thought, ‘I should really take this opportunity.’ Who knows if I’ll ever get here again? This could be it.
“I thought, ‘What’s wrong with me, Serena? What are you thinking about? Are you crazy? Like, “You should really do this.” People live to be athletes. I have a great opportunity to showcase what I do, what I do best, I guess. I think I ended up thinking, “This is pretty cool, so I should do it.”
At 20, Joynt is nearly 25 years younger than Williams, and also 40 years younger than Williams’ oldest rival, Larisa Savchenko, born in 1966. As an unseeded player, Williams could have drawn anyone, including top and second seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, but she received a reasonable first-round draw at the Joint. Although the Australian is one of the most talented young players on the tour, a champion on the grass at Eastbourne last year, she has been stuck in her second year this year, losing 13 of her last 14 matches.
Serena Williams trained with more players than ever to prepare for her first singles competition since 2022. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian.
It’s not even clear that Williams herself actually knows what motivates her to return, but she’s keeping her expectations low. Rather than mischaracterizing her comeback as an attempt to win her 24th Grand Slam title, Williams says it’s an opportunity to truly enjoy her time as a professional tennis player, something that wasn’t possible when she put herself under so much pressure to win major titles: “My feelings will be different,” she says.
“For the first time in my career, my expectations are definitely different. My feelings are just – it’s not like I never liked it before, otherwise I wouldn’t be here today – but I feel like I’m really going to enjoy being there.”
During her years away from competitive play, Williams enjoyed watching tennis and following the development of young players. She names Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Mirra Andreeva as competitors she especially enjoys following. It was Andreeva who, during her own press conference, comically explained how nervous she was at the prospect of drawing with Williams in the first round. Williams sees it as a sign that potential opponents are afraid of her: “It’s like the big four are coming back. I mean Novak (Djokovic) is still here, but no one would want to play them in the first round. I can’t think of anyone who would want to do that.”
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“I just think it’s a huge respect, and that’s another reason why I love her (Andreeva). And also just natural feelings. Especially in Grand Slam tournaments, you want to warm up, you want to play with someone. Nobody knows how my game could or could not develop, what to expect, I don’t know much. It’s always very difficult to play with such opponents.”
Williams has spent the past week training with more players than ever before and is trying to be as ready as possible for the competition. The effort she’s putting into this comeback hasn’t gone unnoticed by some of her fellow players: “I see her in the gym more often than I think I saw her when she was in her prime,” Novak Djokovic said. “That tells me she really wants everything to be the best it can be. Honestly, the effort she puts in is admirable.”
As for Williams, her hesitation about returning has even extended to the prospect of returning to press conferences, but she’s here to put herself on the line again and see how the chips fall: “I never thought I’d be here again, sitting in front of this. We all know how I feel about it. So I never thought I’d do it again,” she says. “All of the above. When I left (tennis), I never thought I’d come back.”