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<\/p>\nSerena Williams offered condolences to her doubles partner Victoria Mboko after injury forced the 19-year-old to withdraw from a \u201cspecial\u201d HSBC Championships with a left knee injury and prematurely curtailed the American\u2019s London comeback.<\/p>\n
It looked unlikely Williams, 44, and Canadian Mboko would play Leylah Fernandez and Laura Siegemund on Thursday evening as scheduled when Mboko retired from her singles match 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 advanced to the semi-finals via walkover and Williams\u2019 attention will now turn to the Berlin Tennis Open, for which she has yet to announce a partner.<\/p>\n
Following the announcement of their withdrawal, Williams \u2013 who had left tennis for nearly four years before returning at Queen\u2019s \u2013 took to Instagram, where she posted a picture of herself training at the west London venue, with daughter Olympia watching on and smiling.<\/p>\n
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Writing to her 17.8 million followers and tagging in her daughter, Williams said:\u00a0\u201cSome moments mean more than trophies. Olympia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a fun and memorable week at HSBC Championships. Thank you to everyone who made it so special.<\/p>\n
\u201cWishing you a speedy recovery, Victoria Mboko. Can\u2019t wait to see you back on court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Williams revealed her return to tennis was in part inspired by the prospect of her two daughters, both of whom were in attendance on Tuesday, being able to watch her play.<\/p>\n
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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 doing 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 comeback that came as a shock after the 23-time singles Grand Slam winner had previously seemed adamant a return to the sport she once dominated was not in her plans.<\/p>\n
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Serena Williams\u2019 family were in attendance at Queen\u2019s Club this week (Adam Davy\/PA)<\/p>\n
(Adam Davy)<\/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
Williams has not ruled out Wimbledon, where she was crowned women\u2019s singles champion six times and won and six doubles titles alongside her sister Venus.<\/p>\n
She said after Tuesday\u2019s victory: \u201cThey have been great about giving me that space and time to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wimbledon\u2019s wild card 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
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Asked if Williams would get a wild card spot if she wanted to, All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) chief Sally Bolton,\u00a0 speaking at a Wimbledon press conference on Thursday morning, said:\u00a0\u201cI can\u2019t answer that question.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut 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
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\u201cThe wild card 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
AELTC chair Debbie Jevans added: \u201cAs Sally says, there is a meeting next week and I am sure it won\u2019t ignore her success at Wimbledon when making that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams offered condolences to her doubles partner Victoria Mboko after injury forced the 19-year-old to withdraw from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[102000,21132,101485,100882,9,24,63,122,124,123,82657,79755],"class_list":["post-263599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-buzz-williams","tag-hsbc","tag-laura-siegemund","tag-leylah-fernandez","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-serena-williams","tag-victoria-mboko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263599","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=263599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}