Serena Williams has been dealt a tough draw in her return to the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz in doubles.

The wild-card pairing of Williams and Victoria Mboko has been drawn to face No. 3 seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe at the HSBC Championships, who are two of the best doubles players in the world individually.

Routliffe is a former World No. 1 and winner of two Grand Slam doubles titles, and was also the runner-up at Wimbledon in 2024 alongside her former longtime partner Gabriela Dabrowski. Melichar-Martinez, meanwhile, owns 19 career WTA doubles titles, and was the 2018 Wimbledon mixed doubles champion. But the American and Canadian-born New Zealander have never played a tournament together, with Melichar-Martinez playing the bulk of this season with Spain’s Cristina Bucsa, who withdrew from the event with injury, and Routliffe playing this year with a rotating cast of partners including Asia Muhammad, Jelena Ostapenko and Zhang Shuai.

The first grass-court tournament of the season, a WTA 500 event, also features a loaded singles field, lead by top seed Elena Rybakina, 2025 Wimbledon finalist Amanda Anisimova, Mboko and Belinda Bencic. Highlights of the singles draw include:

Projected quarterfinals

Top half: (1) Rybakina vs. (8) Leylah Fernandez and (3) Mboko vs. (5) Marta Kostyuk

Bottom half: (4) Bencic vs. (7) Sorana Cirstea and (2) Anisimova vs. (6) Iva Jovic

Unseeded and looming: Alexandra Eala, Zheng Qinwen, Emma Raducanu, Maria Sakkari

First-rounds to watch

Kostyuk vs. (WC) Mika Stojsavljevic: After winning 17 straight matches on clay and reaching the semifinals at Roland Garros, Kostyuk opens her grass season against the 17-year-old Brit who won the junior title at the 2024 US Open.

Karolina Pliskova vs. McCartney Kessler: The former World No. 1 and 2019 Wimbledon finalist brings her comeback season to a surface that has historically been kind to her. The winner of this one faces Mboko in Round 2.

Fernandez vs. (WC) Katie Boulter: Former US Open finalist Fernandez opens against home favorite Boulter, who has two career grass-court WTA singles titles (both in Nottingham).

The HSBC Championships begins on June 8 and runs through June 14.