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Williams expected to make comeback at Queen’sImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam singles titles as well as 14 in women’s doubles with sister VenusByRussell FullerTennis correspondent and Jonathan JurejkoBBC Sport tennis news reporter
Serena Williams is planning to make her eagerly anticipated return to competitive tennis at Queen’s Club next month.
Four years after the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion waved goodbye to the sport in New York, Williams is set to play doubles at the WTA 500 event in London in two weeks’ time.
Nothing has yet been finalised, but the 44-year-old has been free to return to the sport since 22 February, having completed six months back in the drug testing pool.
The American great would need a wildcard, but there are two available for the grass court event which begins on Monday, 8 June.
Wimbledon – where Williams has won seven singles and seven doubles titles – begins three weeks later.
Patrick Mouratoglou, who coached Williams to 10 of her 23 majors, is not part of her team.
Williams’ long-time hitting partner Jarmere Jenkins and Rennae Stubbs – a former Australian doubles player who coached Williams at the 2022 US Open – are expected to work with her.
The Served podcast, hosted by former men’s world number one Andy Roddick, claimed Williams would play with 19-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko at Queen’s.
BBC Sport has not yet been able to confirm this.
After she won in the French Open second round, Mboko stated she didn’t “really have much to say” about the reports but stated she was “very happy” to hear them.
“If she’s ready to come back on her own terms then I feel like it’s up to her to announce that,” she stated.
Williams is one of the greatest players of all time. Her 23 Grand Slam singles titles are the most by a woman in the Open era and second-highest of all-time among women, behind Margaret Court.
She also won 14 major women’s doubles titles with sister Venus – who is still playing on the WTA Tour – and the pair won three Olympic golds in the discipline.
There are two doubles wildcards available for the tournament at Queen’s, and one is reserved for a team which includes a former world number one, a Grand Slam champion of the past 10 years or a current top-30 player.
WIlliams has never liked the word retirement, preferring instead to say she was “evolving away” from tennis in 2022.
She lost to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic in the third round of the 2022 US Open, in what the world thought would be her final match.
Williams had reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open the previous year, and won her last Grand Slam singles title in Melbourne in 2017 at the age of 35.
Her potential return comes amid months of speculation and several interviews about her weight loss.
Last year, Williams told the Today Show in the US about losing 31lb (14kg) over the previous eight months.
She stated had to look at her extra weight as “an opponent”. Despite “training five hours a day” and “running, walking, biking, stair climbing,” she told the show she had no other choice but to “try something different”.
Williams would not say which weight loss drug she was taking, although she had just become a spokesperson for Ro, a company which sells GLP-1 brands like Wegovy and Zepbound (known as Mounjaro in the UK) through its weight-loss programme. Her husband, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, is also an investor.
Williams stated she was now seeing the benefit of her hard work at the gym, was training for a half-marathon and “running farther than I ever had”.
In a follow-up interview on the Today Show in January she stated she was “going to see what happens” over a return.
Serena Williams could play at Queen’s…
The Lawn Tennis Association has consistently prioritised British players when determining who should receive wildcards at domestic grass court events.
All four available for the singles draw are very likely to go to British players, but the LTA is likely to feel differently about the doubles given the “exceptional circumstances” of a potential Williams return.
“Never say never, and not wanting to speak of any one individual player, but you will have seen over recent years that those wildcard opportunities are afforded to British players – that is absolutely my fundamental personal belief and philosophy,” LTA chief executive Scott Lloyd stated at a briefing for journalists in April.
“There might be exceptional circumstances which might influence a unique wildcard, but otherwise those playing opportunities we want to afford to British players.”
The organisation’s performance director Michael Bourne also hinted commercial opportunities could be a factor.
“It’s also really important to remember that we in the performance team understand that players have to earn that right,” Bourne stated.
“We don’t take them for granted. If we didn’t think we had a depth of player where it was right for them to take those opportunities, and there was something else that was good for the business, we would hold our hands up.”
Elder sister Venus has played intermittently on the WTA Tour over the past few years and reached the quarter-finals of the US Open women’s doubles last year.
She is 15 months older than Serena and has already played seven tournaments this year.
Venus’ last singles win came in Washington last July, a month after her 45th birthday.
Martina Navratilova is the oldest woman to win a singles match at a Grand Slam in the Open era – at the age of 47 in 2004.
She also played in the US Open doubles semi-finals in 2005 and won the US Open mixed doubles title a year later – just a month shy of her 50th birthday.
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