{"id":262811,"date":"2026-06-11T04:21:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T04:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262811\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T04:21:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T04:21:25","slug":"hsbc-championships-2026-serena-williams-wins-in-triumphant-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/262811\/","title":{"rendered":"HSBC Championships 2026: Serena Williams Wins in Triumphant Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Serena Williams is back in the winner\u2019s column, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/serena-williams-tennis-legacy-retirement-2022-us-open\/\" type=\"post\" id=\"14410\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">US tennis icon<\/a> made a triumphant return to the court in Tuesday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DZYBf_UvOwx\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">7-6, 6-2 doubles victory<\/a> alongside partner Victoria Mboko.<\/p>\n<p>Playing in her <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/serena-williams-hsbc-championships-queens-club-doubles-draw\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">first pro match<\/a> since 2022, wildcard entry Williams and singles <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/maja-chwalinska-anna-kalinskaya-french-open-roland-garros-results-2026\/\" type=\"post\" id=\"35238\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">world No. 9 Mboko<\/a> won a tricky first set against No. 3 seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe before comfortably taking the second.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was nervous, but I didn\u2019t really think about it,\u201d Williams said postmatch. \u201cI just thought about having fun, which I did.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The 44-year-old hasn\u2019t confirmed her plans beyond this week\u2019s HSBC Championships, opting instead to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DZYWYm_kRZY\/?img_index=2\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DZYWYm_kRZY\/?img_index=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">stay focused<\/a> on Thursday\u2019s quarterfinal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got tired of sitting at home. My kids are out of school for the summer, so why not?\u201d Williams told reporters. \u201cI never got to play here, it was always just the men. It feels really special to play somewhere so iconic.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>  <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams is back in the winner\u2019s column, as the US tennis icon made a triumphant return to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[98803,96599,9,24,63,122,124,123,82657,79755,98804],"class_list":["post-262811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-2026-hsbc-championships","tag-2026-queens-club","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-serena-williams","tag-victoria-mboko","tag-wta-500"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}