Serena Williams’ comeback to tennis has been confirmed, with the 44-year-old playing doubles at the HSBC Championships at Queen\u2019s Club next week.<\/p>\n
The 23-time grand slam singles champion\u2019s imminent return has been touted since it was revealed in December she had re-entered the anti-doping programme \u2013 a prerequisite to play on the tour again.<\/p>\n
She has been eligible since February but has chosen the British grass-court season to step back on to the match court in what will be one of the biggest sports stories of the year.<\/p>\n
Williams has not played since a glittering farewell at the US Open in 2022, although she pointedly avoided using the word retirement, instead saying she was “evolving away” from tennis.<\/p>\n
The American has been given a wild card for the women\u2019s doubles \u2013 reportedly alongside young Canadian Victoria Mboko \u2013 and she said: “Queen\u2019s Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter.<\/p>\n
“Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career, and I\u2019m excited to be back competing on one of the sport\u2019s most iconic stages.”<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019 comeback is a huge coup for the Lawn Tennis Association and tournament director Laura Robson, with women\u2019s tennis returning to the historic venue last year for the first time since 1973.<\/p>\n
“Serena Williams is one of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen, and we\u2019re delighted that she will be making her return to tennis at the LTA\u2019s HSBC Championships,” said the former British number one.<\/p>\n
“Women\u2019s tennis made a historic return to The Queen\u2019s Club last year and now we have an icon of the game stepping back on to court at this prestigious venue \u2013 it\u2019s very exciting for the tournament and the fans.”<\/p>\n
Williams teased the announcement on social media with a video accompanied by the caption: “Good news travels fast.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams’ comeback to tennis has been confirmed, with the 44-year-old playing doubles at the HSBC Championships at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-477872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}