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By Megan Armstrong
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Serena Williams, 44, and Venus Williams, 46, will reunite as doubles partners, and Serena Williams will play her first singles match since the 2022 US Open, at Wimbledon this year.
Williams received a singles wild card for Wimbledon, and according to the Associated Press, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion will face Australian Maya Joint, 20, in the first round. The first round of men's and women's singles will take place across Monday, June 29, and Tuesday, June 30.
Joint, ranked No. 53, is seeking her first-career Wimbledon win and is trying not to think about the fact she has to go through Serena freaking Williams to get it.
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"It's an honor," Joint said, per the AP. "I always dreamed about playing Serena Williams. If you told me 10 years ago that I'd be playing her first round at Wimbledon, that's just crazy. I hope it's on Centre Court, that would be pretty cool. You just have to play the ball. You can't really think about who you are playing because I'll just get too nervous. I'll just take it one ball at a time."
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It's overwhelmingly likely that Williams won't win her eighth Wimbledon singles title this July, and that's perfectly fine. Up until a few weeks ago, we were all under the impression we'd never see Williams play tennis again, so watching her play at all matters more than watching her win.
That would be a borderline insulting platitude for an all-time great, if Williams hadn't basically said the same thing earlier this month.
“I don’t need to win,” Williams said at the HSBC Championships on June 7, per BBC Sport. “I’ve won more than most people have in their whole lives, so it’s not that important to me, and it’s important that I keep reminding myself of that, because I don’t have anything to prove. I don’t have anything to lose, and everything here to just to gain."
Williams officially returned to professional tennis as a doubles wild card alongside 19-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko at the HSBC Championships at Queen's Court in London. Williams and Mboko won their opening match, but Mboko suffered a knee injury in her singles match, so their run ended prematurely.
The following week, Williams paired with Karolina Muchova to compete in doubles at the Berlin Tennis Open, where they lost in the opening round.
Along with Williams' seven Wimbledon singles titles, Serena and Venus have claimed six Wimbledon doubles titles. The legendary sisters have won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles together overall. They'll face Camila Osorio and Solana Sierra in the first round next week. See the full schedule here.
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