The most decorated tennis player of her generation is returning to the place where she built much of her legend. Serena Williams, 44, has been granted a wild card into both the singles and doubles draws at Wimbledon 2026, marking her first Grand Slam appearance since leaving the sport following a third-round defeat at the 2022 U.S. Open.
Her first singles match comes Tuesday against Maya Joint, a 20-year-old Australian ranked 53rd in the world and playing in just her second main draw at the All England Club. Williams, a seven-time singles champion at Wimbledon, has not played a Grand Slam singles match in nearly four years.
In doubles, she reunites with her older sister Venus, 46, a partnership that has produced 14 major titles together, including six at Wimbledon. Their last doubles title at the All England Club came in 2016. They open their campaign Thursday or Friday against Solana Sierra and Camila Osorio.
Why Wimbledon and why now
Williams has not offered a detailed public explanation for why she chose Wimbledon as the site of her Grand Slam return, but her record at the tournament speaks to an obvious logic. She has won 14 combined titles at the All England Club across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles, a total that few players in the history of the sport can match.
Grass also happens to be the most physically forgiving surface, softer on joints than hard courts and therefore more accommodating for older players returning from long absences. Williams has said the summer timing worked practically as well, with her children out of school and available to travel with her.
How her comeback has gone so far
Williams made her official return to competitive tennis earlier this month at Queen’s Club, playing doubles alongside Victoria Mboko. The pair won their opening match in front of a capacity crowd, with Williams showing stretches of her familiar power and competitive sharpness. She graded her own performance a C minus afterward and said there was significant room for improvement, though she added that the experience had been enjoyable.
The run ended abruptly when Mboko suffered a knee injury the following day during a singles match, forcing the pair to withdraw. Williams then traveled to Berlin the following week and entered the doubles draw with Karolina Muchova, but the two lost in the opening round. She opted to skip the remaining grass-court tune-up events and instead trained directly at Wimbledon, where she practiced with players including Marta Kostyuk and Maria Sakkari.
What her path at Wimbledon looks like
The singles draw has given Williams a manageable opening match, but the road beyond Joint gets complicated quickly. A first-round win would likely set up a second-round meeting with 29th-seeded Alexandra Eala, who reached the semifinals in Berlin earlier this month. Beyond that, third seed Iga Swiatek, the defending Wimbledon champion, could be waiting in the third round.
Jasmine Paolini, a 2024 finalist, is a potential round-of-16 opponent. Elina Svitolina, Marta Kostyuk, Emma Navarro, and Donna Vekic occupy the other side of that quarter, a cluster of players who have all been in strong recent form.
The doubles draw presents its own challenges. A win in the opener would likely set up a match against the ninth-seeded team of Ellen Perez and Demi Schuurs, who reached the Bad Homburg final. From there, the bracket could produce matchups against the fifth seed in the round of 16 and the fourth-seeded Australian Open champions in the quarterfinals.
The bigger picture at Wimbledon
Williams is not the only story arriving at the All England Club this fortnight, though she may be the loudest one. Top men’s seed Jannik Sinner enters as the defending champion and favorite despite a shocking second-round exit at Roland Garros last month, where illness and fatigue in the Paris heat derailed his title defense. Carlos Alcaraz, his chief rival, is absent with a wrist injury, which opens the draw considerably.
Novak Djokovic, who turned 39 this week, continues his pursuit of a record 25th Grand Slam title, a mark he has been chasing since the 2023 U.S. Open. On the women’s side, top seed Aryna Sabalenka arrives looking to recover from a painful French Open collapse, while French Open champion Mirra Andreeva and former champion Elena Rybakina round out a competitive field.
Andy Murray, a two-time Wimbledon champion, has returned to the All England Club as well, though this time as part of Jack Draper’s coaching team rather than as a player.
The tournament begins Monday and runs through the second week of July. For Williams, it begins Tuesday, and for a sport that rarely runs short of storylines, this one has been a long time coming.
