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tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\nTennis got a shock to the system on Sunday when it was announced that Serena Williams had taken a wild card into the Wimbledon women\u2019s singles main draw. Yes, we kind of expected it, at some point, after she started her comeback by participating in doubles at Queen\u2019s Club and Berlin. Yes, news of Williams\u2019 comeback had been front page news for most of this season, and singles was always going to be the logical next step.\u00a0<\/p>\n
tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\n
Leave it to the 44-year-old mother of two to dip her toe into singles at Wimbledon, the creme de la creme of Grand Slam tennis \u2013 with zero singles matches under her belt in approximately 1395 days (the number of days since her last match at the 2022 US Open is 1390 as of Wednesday, and Williams will play on next Monday or Tuesday at Wimbledon).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Below, we\u2019ll look at other legendary comebacks on the WTA Tour \u2013 spoiler alert: nothing really compares \u2013 and go over all we need to know ahead of Serena\u2019s return to the court at Wimbledon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Navratilova Wins a Wimbledon Match at 47\u00a0<\/p>\n
We start with the best comp. In 2004 when 47-year-old Navratilova returned to the singles court at SW19, she had been competitive on the doubles tour for the last four years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, the nine-time Wimbledon champion\u2019s decision to play was questioned by pundits. Martina\u2019s response? \u201cI think when people say, `Why are you doing it?\u2019 I guess the answer is, because I still can. Bottom line.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Navratilova was ranked No.15 in doubles at the time, and had been playing on the circuit with regularity, including pairing with Serena in Tokyo in 2002 (they won a round and reached the quarterfinals). In fact, Navratilova scored a win over the Williams sisters at Wimbledon in 2001, at the age of 45, with Arantxa Sanchez Vicario as her partner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Navratilova, who suffered a loss to Gisela Dulko a month earlier at Roland-Garros (in her first Grand Slam singles match in nearly ten years), took a set over the Argentinian in the second round before bowing out. She is to this day the oldest woman to ever win a Grand Slam match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Clijsters Reverses Course\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is time for a new life,\u201d said Clijsters in May of 2007. She was retiring, at the age of 23.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTime for marriage. Time for children? Time also to relax and to play with my dogs. And especially to spend a lot of time with my family and friends,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two years later she was back \u2013 with a vengeance. Forget using this comeback as a comp for Serena, because the similarities end with the fact that both women were mothers when they entered their comeback. Clijsters would go on to win the US Open that year at the age of 26, in her third singles event since returning (she played a total of seven singles matches at Cincinnati and Toronto that year, winning five).\u00a0<\/p>\n
She won another two majors after that, as well.<\/p>\n
Martina Hingis Part 1\u00a0<\/p>\n
With injuries forcing the Swiss Miss out of the game when she was only 22, seven-time Slam champion Hingis returned to the tour after nearly three years away to finish 2006 in the Top 10 in singles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
She would play two years\u2019 worth of Grand Slam singles, reaching three quarterfinals, before her second retirement, which was brought about by the fact that she tested positive for cocaine at Wimbledon in 2007.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hingis was 25 at the start of her comeback.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caroline Wozniacki\u00a0<\/p>\n
Former World No.1 Wozniacki retired in January 2020, having achieved her biggest goals after a long journey on tour. After more than three and a half years away\u2014and the birth of her first two children\u2014the golden retriever made a surprise comeback in the summer of 2023 (at the age of 33. She turned heads immediately by reaching the fourth round at the 2023 US Open (in her third comeback event).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wozniacki\u2019s post-comeback ranking peaked at No.70 during the Paris Olympics and she retired again after reaching the fourth round of the 2024 US Open, at the age of 34.<\/p>\n
Justine Henin\u00a0<\/p>\n
In one of the most surprising retirement announcements in tennis history, seven-time Slam champion Henin retired in May 2008 while holding the World No. 1 ranking. 20 months later, perhaps inspired by Kim Clijsters, the Belgian returned to the tour and immediately made it to the final of her very first Grand Slam back at the Australian Open. It took Serena Williams to fend her off in three sets.<\/p>\n
Henin was 27 at the time of her comeback.\u00a0 She won two singles titles later that year before an elbow injury forced a second, permanent retirement, her last matches being played at the 2011 Australian Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moms at Majors\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams has made no secret of the fact that she wants her daughters to see their mom playing tennis at a high level. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really about my kids getting to see me play,\u201d Williams said at a news conference on Sunday. \u201cOlympia is a little bit older, Adira is very young. But it\u2019s also having an opportunity to still be able to possibly do that, one last time, is kind of cool and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only three mothers \u2013 Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Kim Clijsters \u2013\u00a0 have won titles after childbirth. Serena played four major finals as a mom, but lost them all (2018 and 2018 Wimbledon and US Open finals).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Comebacks Beyond 40\u00a0<\/p>\n
Martina Navratilova returned to singles in 2002, aged 45, eight years after retiring, and won a match on the grass in Eastbourne, England. In the end, she never won more than one match at the six tournaments she entered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Serena\u2019s sister Venus Williams is in the midst of a comeback of her own. The seven-time major champion missed about 15 months from April of 2024 to last summer and returned to become the oldest woman to win a WTA match (at age 45) since Navratilova in 2004 when she took out Peyton Stearns at the Citi Open in D.C.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since then, Williams, now 46, has lost 11 consecutive matches on tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Serena Williams is out at Wimbledon today training with Maria Sakkari as she tries to ramp up to her singles comeback.<\/p>\n
Didn\u2019t often see her training with other players at tournaments in the past but after not playing singles for four years this is very necessary. pic.twitter.com\/hLEaYw8PD1<\/a><\/p>\n