The biggest news going into the second week of this year’s riveting French Open? It’s not the heated disputes over line calls; it’s not Frances Tiafoe yelling at his opponent, “Don’t act like you’re tough—you’re not hard, bro” in a different dispute; it’s not the players’ earlier media boycott to protest the money they’re paid by the tournament; it’s not a raft of upsets that have seen the ouster of Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic, Coco Gauff, and a host of other top-ranked players.
No: The big news today is that tennis legend and 23-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams has confirmed what some of us have either known or suspected for a while now: that she is indeed, after four years away from it, coming back to play pro tennis—at least at Queens, the famed grass-court Wimbledon warm-up tournament in London, where she will play doubles with the rising star Victoria Mboko.
“Queen’s Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter,” Serena, 44, said in a statement earlier today. “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.”
That Serena was thinking about coming back to the sport was itself no secret: She entered the mandatory drug-testing protocols required of all players last year, and after six months in that program became technically eligible to play again in February. And she’s been offering both subtle and not-so-subtle teasers in recent interviews, ad campaigns, and social media posts.
For Mboko, of course, it’s the stuff childhood dreams are made of. “She’s my idol,” Mboko said at a news conference at the French Open, “so it’s really cool.”
The Queens tournament begins on June 8. Serena enters the tournament after requesting a wild card—given that she’s been away from the tour for so long, it’s the only way she’ll be able to enter prestigious tournaments like Queens or, if we’re lucky, any Grand Slam tournaments. Not that securing a wild card would seem to present any issue for the woman who won 73 singles titles and earned $95 (aside from her commercial endorsements) during her legendary earlier career.
We—along with the rest of the tennis world, as well as the legions of fans Serena brought from outside of the sport—will be eagerly watching her progress.
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