LONDON \u2014 Novak Djokovic calls Serena Williams’ tennis comeback \u201cinspirational\u201d and \u201cepic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I told her,\u201d Djokovic said Saturday at\u00a0Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
The 44-year-old Williams is the buzz of SW19 \u2014 the famous postcode of Wimbledon \u2014 as she prepares to play her\u00a0first singles match at the event in four years\u00a0Tuesday when she faces No. 53 Maya Joint in the first round.<\/p>\n
Williams had been away from the sport since her farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open but she accepted a wild-card entry to play women’s doubles with her sister Venus, who is 46. And then she accepted another to play singles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see her in the gym more than I have, I think, seen her when she was at her prime,\u201d Djokovic, a 24-time major champion, said of Williams, a 23-time major winner in singles. \u201cIt tells me that she really wants this to work out the best way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djokovic added: \u201cI always admired her career, her journey, her story. Of course, Venus\u2019, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019 most recent appearance at Wimbledon was in 2022 when she\u00a0lost in the opening round\u00a0to Harmony Tan, who was then-ranked 115th. The American great walked away from tennis \u2014 she described it as \u201cevolving\u201d away \u2014 after\u00a0losing in the third round\u00a0to Ajla Tomljanovic at Flushing Meadows. Her\u00a0second daughter\u00a0was born in 2023.<\/p>\n
Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon singles title winner, could meet defending champion Iga Swiatek in the third round.<\/p>\n
No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka is among the many players and fans looking forward to next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard she said she\u2019s doing that for her kids to see her play. They really get excited about that,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing what she\u2019s doing. Also it\u2019s Serena Williams, everyone was talking about that. She\u2019s bringing more eyes on tennis. It\u2019s a good thing for tennis. I\u2019m really excited to see her play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 Novak Djokovic calls Serena Williams’ tennis comeback \u201cinspirational\u201d and \u201cepic.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s what I told her,\u201d Djokovic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-765087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}