Serena Williams handed Wimbledon singles wild card
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Serena Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon champion, will return to play in the women's singles event at the Grand Slam after receiving a wild card.
PHOTO: AFP
LONDON – American great Serena Williams will make a stunning return to singles at Wimbledon after being handed the final wild card by the All England Club on June 21.
The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion was already assured of a return to the championships for the first time in four years after accepting a doubles wild card with sister Venus.
“This is not a drill,” the tournament wrote in a post on its Instagram account.
The announcement that the 44-year-old mother of two will play singles will provide a massive storyline for the Grand Slam tournament that starts on June 29.
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion returned to court after a four-year absence at June’s Queen’s Club championships, playing doubles with Canada’s Victoria Mboko.
They knocked out the third seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe before an injury to Mboko ended their participation without playing another match.
Williams and Czech doubles partner Karolina Muchova then lost in their first match at the Berlin Open on June 15, hours after she and her sister Venus Williams were awarded a wild card to play in the Wimbledon doubles event.
Williams, widely regarded as the greatest female tennis player of all time, last played a singles match at Wimbledon as a wild card in 2022 – losing to Harmony Tan in round one.
After that year’s US Open, she said she would “evolve away from tennis” although never officially retired.
Wild cards are handed out by tournament organisers to players whose rankings do not permit automatic entry and are usually reserved for home players, those with illustrious career records, or high-profile players returning from injury.
Williams first appeared at Wimbledon in 1998, reaching the singles third round.
She won the title for the first time in 2002, beating older sister Venus in the final, and went on to become the dominant force in the women’s game, spending a combined total of 319 weeks as the WTA world No. 1.
Williams added singles crowns in 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016 and also won six doubles titles at the grass-court Major with Venus.
In on-court action on June 21, Federico Cerundolo won the longest final in Queen’s Club history, beating Tommy Paul to claim the biggest title of his career.
The 27-year-old from Buenos Aires became the first Argentinian to lift the trophy at the long-established Wimbledon warmup tournament, where tennis greats such as Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Rafael Nadal are among the previous champions.
Cerundolo once again demonstrated impressive endurance, coming from a set down for the second successive match to win 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 6-3 in the sweltering heat of London.
At 3hr 2min, the players were on court for five minutes longer than the previous longest Queen’s final – Marin Cilic’s 2018 win over Novak Djokovic.
Afterwards, Cerundolo paid tribute to his parents for their court-side support.
“My mum and dad just arrived for the last two (matches),” he said. “It’s the first time my dad took a flight and watched me outside Argentina. Congratulations for Father’s Day!”
Cerundolo was also inspired to a first ATP 500 title by a Diego Maradona Argentina football shirt draped over a chair in the players’ box throughout the tournament.
Over in Germany, Frances Tiafoe beat fellow American Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-4 to win the Halle Open on June 21, sealing the biggest title of his career and becoming the first American since 1993 to lift the ATP 500 grass-court trophy.
Said Tiafoe: “He’s a hell of a player and a hell of a competitor too.
“I knew he was going to make it hard out there at the end and I played some great tennis. Luck was on my way a little bit.”
Elsewhere in Germany, the Czech Republic’s Linda Noskova scooped her first grass-court title by beating American Jessica Pegula 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in the Berlin Open final on June 21.
The players took the court almost six hours late after a day of wild weather in the German capital, which forced the tournament to be suspended for several hours. AFP, REUTERS
