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<\/p>\nSerena Williams\u2019 long-awaited return to competitive tennis was left in the balance on Wednesday after doubles partner Victoria Mboko retired through injury in her opening singles match at the WTA Tour event at Queen\u2019s Club in London.<\/p>\n
Tennis great Williams, 44, made her eagerly-anticipated comeback on Tuesday, securing a win alongside Canadian teenager Mboko in their first doubles match.<\/p>\n
The duo defeated third seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe 7-6 (7\/2), 6-2.<\/p>\n
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Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n
They were next scheduled to face Leylah Fernandez and Laura Siegemund in the grass-court event, a warm-up for Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
Mboko, who received a bye into the round-of-16 of the Queen\u2019s Club Championships singles, was down a set, but leading Karolina Pliskova 4-3 in the second she slipped behind the baseline trying to return a shot.<\/p>\n
The stumble effectively forced her into doing the splits, drawing a gasp from the crowd.<\/p>\n
Mboko was visibly upset as she spoke to the attending medical staff.<\/p>\n
She got to her feet, but the official reason subsequently given for her retirement was a knee injury, with Mboko heard saying on television cameras \u201cthere is no stability right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mboko buried her face behind a towel as she continued to consult her team, before the umpire eventually announced her retirement, with the crowd giving the 19-year-old a sympathetic reception.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a shame,\u201d Pliskova said. \u201cOf course, this is not the way we want to win. Hopefully, she is going to be fine for Wimbledon.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Mboko, ninth in the women\u2019s singles rankings, withdraws from the doubles, that would be the end of Williams\u2019 tournament as well.<\/p>\n
Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, stunned the sporting world a week ago with her shock announcement that she would compete at Queen\u2019s, where she is only playing in the doubles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so fun. I had so much fun playing with Victoria,\u201d she said after Tuesday\u2019s win.<\/p>\n
Williams said her decision to return to competitive tennis for the first time since losing to Ajla Tomljanovic at the 2022 US Open was inspired by a desire to play in front of her children.<\/p>\n
Her two young daughters, Olympia and Adira, as well as husband Alexis Ohanian, were all courtside at Queen\u2019s on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Williams is also scheduled to play doubles at the Berlin Open next week, but has yet to decide if she wants to feature in the Wimbledon doubles.<\/p>\n
She played down the prospect of featuring in the singles at Wimbledon \u2014 where she has won the title seven times \u2014 when she faced the media on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, no, I feel like I probably need to train a little bit more if I want to play singles and we\u2019ll see if I get there, and if not, that\u2019s not my journey right now,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
Iva Jovic, speaking after defeating Alexandra Eala 6-2, 6-2 to book her place in the Queen\u2019s women\u2019s singles quarter-finals, believes it won\u2019t be long before Williams returns to singles action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she will be back on the singles court very soon, as well. It\u2019s exciting. She\u2019s looking really good,\u201d the 18-year-old American said.<\/p>\n
Mboko has called Williams her \u201cidol,\u201d and she said it was a memorable experience to play alongside her.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, even knowing I could play with Serena I\u2019m so grateful, first of all,\u201d she said on Tuesday. \u201cI don\u2019t play that much doubles, but I think sharing the court, I think I can learn a lot, even though we\u2019re still competing. I just had so much fun today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams\u2019 long-awaited return to competitive tennis was left in the balance on Wednesday after doubles partner Victoria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123,30978,30977],"class_list":["post-263961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-the-taipei-times","tag-30977"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263961","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=263961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}