Serena Williams is back on the tour.
Beginning this week, Williams will be playing doubles at the Queen’s Club Championships alongside Canadian teenager and world No. 9 Victoria Mboko. She will also play doubles at the Berlin Open later this month.
Why did she choose to come back at age 44? The answer was easy.
“Why not? For lack of a better explanation,” Williams said at Queen’s Club in London Sunday.
Williams, who has 39 Grand Slam titles between her illustrious singles and doubles careers, also talked about her children, daughters Olympia and Adira, getting to watch their mom.
“I’ve had enough pressure,” Williams shared. “For me right now, it’s really just about…my kids getting to see me play. Olympia is a little bit older, Adira is very young, but it’s also still moments like that.”
Williams last played professionally at the 2022 US Open, after which she made clear her desire to “evolve away” from tennis and focus on her family. After giving birth to Olympia in 2017, Williams said she experienced joint pain. She later credited a GLP-1 medication with helping lessen the joint pain. She was reinstated onto the tour in February after reentering the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s required drug protocol, which stirred rumors of her return.
Williams’s entry into two grass court tournaments raises questions over whether she will play Wimbledon in July, a tournament she’s won 13 times across her singles and doubles career. She was non-committal on that topic on Sunday, emphasizing how she’s not putting any pressure on herself with this return. When asked whether she would play singles at any point in her comeback, she took a similar tune.
“I feel like I probably need to train a little bit more if I want to play singles and we’ll see if I get there. And, if not, that’s not my journey right now.”
Williams and Mboko’s first match at Queen’s Club will take place on Tuesday. They’ll face third seeds Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez.
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