Serena Williams has said her professional tennis return at the age of 44 is about \u201cjust having fun,\u201d insisting winning is \u201cnot important\u201d after lifting 23 grand slam singles titles during a hugely successful career.<\/p>\n
Williams will play doubles alongside the Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko at Queen\u2019s Club this week in her first competitive outing since stepping away from tennis in 2022. Although she has committed to playing doubles in Berlin afterwards, her future beyond that remains uncertain. Meetings to determine the first batch of Wimbledon wildcards begin soon but when asked whether she intends to return to singles competition, Williams said: \u201cI can\u2019t say yeah, I can\u2019t say no. Right now, no.\u201d<\/p>\n
On her motivation for returning to elite sport after so long out, Williams, who gave birth to daughters in 2017 and 2023, said: \u201cI don\u2019t need to win. I\u2019ve won more than most people have in their whole lives, so for me it\u2019s not important to me. It\u2019s important that I keep reminding myself of that because I don\u2019t have anything to prove, I don\u2019t have anything to lose and everything here is just a gain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis whole journey is like I\u2019m putting no pressure on myself. It\u2019s really about my kids getting to see me play. I mean, Olympia [aged eight] is a little bit older, Adira [aged two] is very young, but it\u2019s also still moments like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams added: \u201cAn athlete is the best thing that you can be in the highest place, and having an opportunity to still be able to possibly do that one last time is kind of cool and exciting, so there\u2019s a little bit of that too. I feel like I probably need to train a little bit more if I want to play singles. We\u2019ll see if I get there. And if not \u2026 that\u2019s not my journey right now. It\u2019s summer, the kids aren\u2019t in school, so it\u2019s a perfect time to get out there, have fun and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams practised with the 19-year-old Mboko, the world No 9 in singles, on Sunday morning before their first-round doubles match against the third seeds, Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe, which is expected to take place on Tuesday or Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Revealing she selected Mboko because the teenager \u201creminded me a lot of myself\u201d, Williams said: \u201cI remember seeing her play in Montreal [where Mboko won the 2025 Canadian Open]. I was impressed with her attitude, and what I liked the most about her was that the next time she played she still kept winning. Sometimes you win one and then have a little bit of a low, which is normal, and that\u2019s OK as well. But I loved how she had this drive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serena Williams (right) will team up with world No 9 Victoria Mboko at Queen\u2019s Club. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Their union will be particularly memorable for rising star Mboko, who was only 10 when Williams won her last grand slam. \u201cGrowing up, Serena has always been my idol,\u201d said the Canadian. \u201cIt was really hard not to like her because she won every tournament she played. So she was just an easy idol for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing someone on TV versus actually talking to them in person and having conversations, of course, it\u2019s very different. I think she\u2019s really nice and she\u2019s very personable, very relatable. And I think she\u2019s really funny. So I\u2019ve found a lot of comfort with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
As then reigning US Open champion, Emma Raducanu remains one of the last players to face Williams on court, thrashing her 6-4, 6-0<\/a> in the penultimate tournament of the American\u2019s career when they met in the first round of the 2022 Cincinnati Open. \u201cI remember that match,\u201d recalled Raducanu on Sunday. \u201cI was super nervous before playing her because it was just announced that she was stopping.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really great to see her back. I think it\u2019s an amazing inspiration and for all of us to see her around is a really cool thing. She\u2019s the greatest female tennis player of all time. It\u2019s just amazing to have her part of the tour again.\u201d<\/p>\n