{"id":273473,"date":"2026-06-22T00:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T00:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/273473\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T00:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T00:08:15","slug":"serena-williams-will-play-singles-at-wimbledon-2026-after-wild-card-entry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/273473\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams will play singles at Wimbledon 2026 after wild card entry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Serena Williams<\/a> will play singles at Wimbledon<\/a> 2026 after receiving a wild card entry, the tournament announced Sunday.<\/p>\n

Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, last played singles at the 2022 U.S. Open, ending the first part of her career in a three-set loss to Australia\u2019s Ajla Tomljanovi\u0107.<\/p>\n

But after starting her tennis comeback with doubles appearances on grass, and receiving a wild card into the Wimbledon doubles event with sister and fellow legend of the sport, Venus<\/a>, 46, the 44-year-old will return to the version of tennis she most dominated at the Grand Slam she has won seven times.<\/p>\n

During news conferences at warm-up events in London and Berlin, Williams had been both philosophical and non-committal about the prospect of her playing singles.<\/p>\n

During a news conference at Queen\u2019s, where she won her first match back with Canada\u2019s Victoria Mboko, Williams said: \u201cI feel like I\u2019m probably going to train a little bit more. I want to play singles and we\u2019ll see if I get there and if not, that\u2019s not my journey right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serena and Venus Williams are reuniting at Wimbledon<\/p>\n

Ava Wallace<\/p>\n

At the Berlin Tennis Open, after a loss with Karol\u00edna Muchov\u00e1 of the Czech Republic, Williams was evasive when asked about a singles wild card into Wimbledon. At that time, the first batch of wild cards had been released \u2014 including Serena\u2019s partnership with Venus in the doubles \u2014 but one wild card into the women\u2019s singles draw remained. Now, it is Serena\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Williams always left the door open for a return \u2014 \u201cevolving away\u201d from tennis rather than using the word \u201cretire\u201d almost four years ago. Her children are now 8 and 3, and she has spoken about returning to the court so they can see her as her full self.<\/p>\n

After spending six months in tennis\u2019 anti-doping testing pool, Williams became eligible to enter events in February. When Williams\u2019 name was seen on a list of players in that pool, last December, she dispelled word of a comeback \u2014 \u201cOmg yall I\u2019m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy\u201d \u2014 on social media.<\/p>\n

But during an interview on the \u201cToday\u201d show in January, Williams was offered the chance to end speculation about her return. Instead, she laughed and responded: \u201cIf I want to put it to bed \u2026 Listen, I want to go to bed \u2014 it\u2019s early.\u201d<\/p>\n

On both occasions, representatives for Williams did not respond to a request for comment. They did not respond to a request for comment about her return to tennis at Queen\u2019s, nor her Wimbledon plans.<\/p>\n

Her last Wimbledon title came in 2016, when she and Venus also won the doubles event. That evolution away from tennis, after the 2022 U.S. Open, appeared to have brought to an end a glittering career. Williams holds 23 singles Grand Slam titles, the most of any woman in the Open Era, with 14 more in women\u2019s doubles and two in mixed. To date, Williams has won 73 singles titles and earned just under $95 million in prize money; along the way, she has become one of the most significant crossover stars and cultural figures in the history of sports.<\/p>\n

\"Serena<\/p>\n

\n Serena Williams\u2019 last Wimbledon title came in 2016. (Glyn Kirk \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Williams didn\u2019t just win: She remade how tennis is played, who plays it, who watches it, and how they feel about the sport and themselves<\/p>\n

Now, she will face the biggest test of her comeback, with the possibility of facing the stars of today\u2019s game, many of whom watched her, idolized her or saw her as a role model growing up, from Aryna Sabalenka and Iga \u015awi\u0105tek to Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina. Her return to singles will also test one of her fundamental beliefs about her return to tennis, which she revealed at Queen\u2019s in a news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need to win. I\u2019ve won more than most people have in their whole lives. I don\u2019t have anything to lose. Everything is just a gain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A whole different order of magnitude\u2019<\/p>\n

Analysis from senior tennis writer Charlie Eccleshare<\/p>\n

Williams playing Wimbledon doubles, with Venus, four years after her last professional tennis match? That was already a huge story. But there was always a sense that something even bigger might be brewing.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, Sunday night\u2019s announcement of a singles wild card for Serena confirms that this comeback just got serious. Playing a Grand Slam doubles event at 44 is still a huge achievement, especially if she and Venus can win a match or two, but singles? That\u2019s a whole different order of magnitude.<\/p>\n

As challenging as doubles is, Williams has already shown in her first couple of matches back \u2014 a win and an honorable defeat \u2014 that she\u2019s ready to be competitive in that discipline. Singles is different, barely recognizable to doubles from a physical standpoint, and there were times in those doubles matches when Wiliams, entirely understandably, looked rusty when made to move extensively by her opponents.<\/p>\n

Her serve is such a weapon, especially on grass, that Williams will be able to compensate for this to a certain extent, but it\u2019s still a huge ask for her to be able to match the physical advantages that players who are mostly around half her age possess.<\/p>\n

Her other biggest strength to counteract this may be her aura, which will likely lead to some players feeling overwhelmed by the experience of facing her. That was certainly the case in Williams\u2019 first match back at Queen\u2019s, when Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez both produced error-strewn performances in front of a packed crowd.<\/p>\n

For her first-round opponent, a singles match against Williams on Centre Court will be even more intimidating, because this is going to be unlike anything the sport has ever seen. Martina Navratilova returning to the Wimbledon singles court in 2004 aged 47, after a 10-year absence, in 2004 is comparable, but 22 years on with a far wider media landscape, the hype will be even greater.<\/p>\n

All things being equal, winning any matches at this year\u2019s Wimbledon would be a monumental achievement. Because it\u2019s Williams, there\u2019ll be expectations that she can pull of miracles, but some perspective is important here. For Williams herself, who said a couple of weeks ago that \u201cI don\u2019t need to win. I don\u2019t have anything to prove, I don\u2019t have anything to lose and everything here is just to gain,\u201d the message is that the appeal is in returning to the court and giving her kids the chance to see their mom play.<\/p>\n

It will be fascinating to see how long that mindset lasts, because Williams is surely unlikely to hang around if results don\u2019t go her way. Maybe they will at Wimbledon, maybe they won\u2019t. But either way with singles now on the agenda as well as doubles, buckle up for what looks like being one of the wildest rides in tennis history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serena Williams will play singles at Wimbledon 2026 after receiving a wild card entry, the tournament announced Sunday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17,15558,9,11,10,15559,23,15547],"class_list":["post-273473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-culture","tag-global-sports","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-olympics","tag-sports-business","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273473","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=273473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}