LONDON \u2014 Novak Djokovic calls Serena Williams\u2019 tennis comeback \u201cinspirational\u201d and \u201cepic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I told her,\u201d Djokovic said Saturday at Wimbledon<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 44-year-old Williams is the buzz of SW19 \u2014 the famous post code of Wimbledon \u2014 as she prepares to play her first singles match at the event in four years<\/a> Tuesday when she faces No. 53 Maya Joint in the first round.<\/p>\n Williams had been away from the sport since her farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open but she accepted a wild-card entry to play women\u2019s doubles with her sister Venus, who is 46. And then she accepted another to play singles.<\/p>\n \u201cI see her in the gym more than I have, I think, seen her when she was at her prime,\u201d Djokovic, a 24-time major champion, said of Williams, a 23-time major winner in singles. \u201cIt tells me that she really wants this to work out the best way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Djokovic added: \u201cI always admired her career, her journey, her story. Of course, Venus\u2019, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams\u2019 most-recent appearance at Wimbledon was in 2022 when she lost in the opening round<\/a> to Harmony Tan, who was then-ranked 115th. The American great walked away from tennis \u2014 she described it as \u201cevolving\u201d away \u2014 after losing in the third round<\/a> to Ajla Tomljanovic at Flushing Meadows. Her second daughter<\/a> was born in 2023.<\/p>\n Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon singles title winner, could meet defending champion Iga Swiatek in the third round.<\/p>\n No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka is among the many players and fans looking forward to next week.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard she said she\u2019s doing that for her kids to see her play. They really get excited about that,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing what she\u2019s doing. Also it\u2019s Serena Williams, everyone was talking about that. She\u2019s bringing more eyes on tennis. It\u2019s a good thing for tennis. I\u2019m really excited to see her play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 Novak Djokovic calls Serena Williams\u2019 tennis comeback \u201cinspirational\u201d and \u201cepic.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s what I told her,\u201d Djokovic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-730020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}