By Carolyn Coene
Serena Williams will return to professional tennis nearly four years after her last competitive match.
The 44-year-old announced Monday that she has accepted a wild-card entry into the doubles draw at the HSBC Championships, a WTA 500 tournament scheduled for June 8-14 at Queen's Club in London. Williams has not competed since the 2022 U.S. Open.
Williams teased the announcement with a short video posted on social media before the tournament officially confirmed her participation. The former world No. 1 will make her return on grass courts, a surface where she enjoyed some of the biggest successes of her career.
Reports last week suggested Williams would partner with Canadian rising star Victoria Mboko in doubles. Tournament officials later confirmed the pairing.
Williams is widely considered one of the greatest players in tennis history. She won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any woman in the Open Era. She also captured 73 career singles titles, four Olympic gold medals and spent 319 weeks ranked No. 1 in the world. Alongside her sister, Venus Williams, she won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles and completed a Career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles competition.
Her return follows months of speculation after she re-entered the International Tennis Integrity Agency's anti-doping testing pool, a requirement for players seeking to return to professional competition. Williams became eligible to compete again earlier this year.
"Queen's Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter," Williams said in a statement released by the tournament. "Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career, and I'm excited to be back competing on one of the sport's most iconic stages."
The announcement has also fueled speculation about a possible appearance at Wimbledon later this summer. Williams is a seven-time Wimbledon singles champion and has won six Wimbledon doubles titles with her sister Venus. Tournament organizers have not indicated whether she plans to compete in additional events beyond Queen's Club.
Williams last played professionally at the 2022 U.S. Open, where she reached the third round before losing to Ajla Tomljanović. While many viewed that tournament as her farewell to tennis, Williams never officially announced her retirement from the sport.
Many WTA players have expressed their thoughts regarding Williams' potential return, such as Naomi Osaka, who famously beat Williams in the 2018 US Open final.
"That's definitely something I would be really excited about, just to see around the sites and playing matches again. I think it's really cool for tennis, I would be excited to see her outfits again, too. But also her playing. I think she's one of the best players in the world, of course," said Naomi Osaka.
"That would be really cool," Coco Gauff said. "I did say one of my biggest regrets was not being able to play her. … We'll see. But I think it would be cool for the sport to have a legend back playing."
She returned to the sport after a challenging childbirth and maternity leave looking to tie Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 major titles. She reached four Slam finals but fell short of her goal. Since then, Novak Djokovic has tied Court's mark. He too said it would be "great to have her back" when asked about it in the spring.
Her return marks one of the biggest stories in tennis this season and will bring one of the sport's most recognizable figures back to competition for the first time in nearly four years.