{"id":263113,"date":"2026-06-11T13:16:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T13:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/263113\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T13:16:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T13:16:50","slug":"serena-williams-tennis-comeback-ends-early-with-injury-heartbreak-at-queens-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/263113\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams\u2019 tennis comeback ends early with injury heartbreak at Queen\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Serena Williams\u2019 tennis comeback <\/a>at Queen\u2019s Club has been prematurely curtailed after her doubles partner Victoria Mboko was forced to withdraw with a left knee injury.<\/p>\n

It looked unlikely Williams, 44, and Mboko, 19, would play Leylah Fernandez and Laura Siegemund on Thursday evening as scheduled when Mboko retired from her singles match <\/a>against Karolina Pliskova on Wednesday after slipping in the second set.<\/p>\n

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Mboko officially withdrew from the doubles on Thursday morning, meaning Fernandez and Siegemund have advanced to the semi-finals via walkover and Williams\u2019 attention will turn to the Berlin Tennis Open, for which she has yet to announce a partner.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

Victoria Mboko was in a lot of pain after her knee injury against Karolina Pliskova (Getty)<\/p>\n

According to a report in The Times prior to Mboko\u2019s injury, that could be the Czech Republic\u2019s Karolina Muchova.<\/p>\n

Mboko was visibly upset following her injury \u2013 which effectively forced her into the splits \u2013 and could be overheard telling physios \u201cthere is no stability right now\u201d.<\/p>\n

Williams chose the HSBC Championships at the Queen\u2019s Club for her first tennis in nearly four years,<\/a> a comeback that came as shock after the 23-time grand slam winner had previously seemed adamant a return to the sport she once dominated was not in her plans.<\/p>\n

\"Serena<\/p>\n

Serena Williams had enjoyed her tennis comeback at Queen\u2019s (PA Wire)<\/p>\n

\"Williams<\/p>\n

Williams and Mboko had won their first-round match (AP)<\/p>\n

The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion and 2025 WTA Newcomer of the Year Mboko beat Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe in their opening match on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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Williams has not ruled out Wimbledon, where she won seven singles titles and six doubles titles alongside her sister, Venus, saying after Tuesday\u2019s victory: \u201cThey have been great about giving me that space and time to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wimbledon\u2019s wildcard committee will formally make their decisions next week, but SW19 organisers are certainly aware of the buzz Williams\u2019 return to tennis has already inspired.<\/p>\n

Asked if Williams would get a wildcard spot if she wanted to, All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) chief Sally Bolton, speaking at a Wimbledon press conference on Thursday morning, said: \u201cI can\u2019t answer that question, but I guess what I can say is we can all see how much excitement Serena being back on a tennis court and particularly on a grass court has created and so one can only imagine what that would be like at the championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wildcard committee will formally make their decisions next week and we\u2019ll be communicating those, but she has certainly created a fantastic buzz and that\u2019s exciting for the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams\u2019 tennis comeback at Queen\u2019s Club has been prematurely curtailed after her doubles partner Victoria Mboko was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[102000,101970,100780,16511,101485,100882,9,24,63,21130,122,124,123,82657,101800,5372,79755],"class_list":["post-263113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-buzz-williams","tag-karolina-muchova","tag-karolina-pliskova","tag-knee-injury","tag-laura-siegemund","tag-leylah-fernandez","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens-club","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-serena-williams","tag-singles-match","tag-thursday-morning","tag-victoria-mboko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263113","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=263113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}