Everything You Need to Know About Serena’s Wimbledon Comeback
Tennis got a shock to the system on Sunday when it was announced that Serena Williams had taken a wild card into the Wimbledon women’s singles main draw. Yes, we kind of expected it, at some point, after she started her comeback by participating in doubles at Queen’s Club and Berlin. Yes, news of Williams’ comeback had been front page news for most of this season, and singles was always going to be the logical next step.
Leave it to the 44-year-old mother of two to dip her toe into singles at Wimbledon, the creme de la creme of Grand Slam tennis – with zero singles matches under her belt in approximately 1395 days (the number of days since her last match at the 2022 US Open is 1390 as of Wednesday, and Williams will play on next Monday or Tuesday at Wimbledon).
Below, we’ll look at other legendary comebacks on the WTA Tour – spoiler alert: nothing really compares – and go over all we need to know ahead of Serena’s return to the court at Wimbledon.
Navratilova Wins a Wimbledon Match at 47
We start with the best comp. In 2004 when 47-year-old Navratilova returned to the singles court at SW19, she had been competitive on the doubles tour for the last four years.
Still, the nine-time Wimbledon champion’s decision to play was questioned by pundits. Martina’s response? “I think when people say, `Why are you doing it?’ I guess the answer is, because I still can. Bottom line.”
Navratilova was ranked No.15 in doubles at the time, and had been playing on the circuit with regularity, including pairing with Serena in Tokyo in 2002 (they won a round and reached the quarterfinals). In fact, Navratilova scored a win over the Williams sisters at Wimbledon in 2001, at the age of 45, with Arantxa Sanchez Vicario as her partner.
Navratilova, who suffered a loss to Gisela Dulko a month earlier at Roland-Garros (in her first Grand Slam singles match in nearly ten years), took a set over the Argentinian in the second round before bowing out. She is to this day the oldest woman to ever win a Grand Slam match.
Clijsters Reverses Course
“It is time for a new life,” said Clijsters in May of 2007. She was retiring, at the age of 23.
“Time for marriage. Time for children? Time also to relax and to play with my dogs. And especially to spend a lot of time with my family and friends,” she said.
Two years later she was back – with a vengeance. Forget using this comeback as a comp for Serena, because the similarities end with the fact that both women were mothers when they entered their comeback. Clijsters would go on to win the US Open that year at the age of 26, in her third singles event since returning (she played a total of seven singles matches at Cincinnati and Toronto that year, winning five).
She won another two majors after that, as well.
Martina Hingis Part 1
With injuries forcing the Swiss Miss out of the game when she was only 22, seven-time Slam champion Hingis returned to the tour after nearly three years away to finish 2006 in the Top 10 in singles.
She would play two years’ worth of Grand Slam singles, reaching three quarterfinals, before her second retirement, which was brought about by the fact that she tested positive for cocaine at Wimbledon in 2007.
Hingis was 25 at the start of her comeback.
Caroline Wozniacki
Former World No.1 Wozniacki retired in January 2020, having achieved her biggest goals after a long journey on tour. After more than three and a half years away—and the birth of her first two children—the golden retriever made a surprise comeback in the summer of 2023 (at the age of 33. She turned heads immediately by reaching the fourth round at the 2023 US Open (in her third comeback event).
Wozniacki’s post-comeback ranking peaked at No.70 during the Paris Olympics and she retired again after reaching the fourth round of the 2024 US Open, at the age of 34.
Justine Henin
In one of the most surprising retirement announcements in tennis history, seven-time Slam champion Henin retired in May 2008 while holding the World No. 1 ranking. 20 months later, perhaps inspired by Kim Clijsters, the Belgian returned to the tour and immediately made it to the final of her very first Grand Slam back at the Australian Open. It took Serena Williams to fend her off in three sets.
Henin was 27 at the time of her comeback. She won two singles titles later that year before an elbow injury forced a second, permanent retirement, her last matches being played at the 2011 Australian Open.
Moms at Majors
Williams has made no secret of the fact that she wants her daughters to see their mom playing tennis at a high level.
“It’s really about my kids getting to see me play,” Williams said at a news conference on Sunday. “Olympia is a little bit older, Adira is very young. But it’s also having an opportunity to still be able to possibly do that, one last time, is kind of cool and exciting.”
Only three mothers – Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Kim Clijsters – have won titles after childbirth. Serena played four major finals as a mom, but lost them all (2018 and 2018 Wimbledon and US Open finals).
Comebacks Beyond 40
Martina Navratilova returned to singles in 2002, aged 45, eight years after retiring, and won a match on the grass in Eastbourne, England. In the end, she never won more than one match at the six tournaments she entered.
Serena’s sister Venus Williams is in the midst of a comeback of her own. The seven-time major champion missed about 15 months from April of 2024 to last summer and returned to become the oldest woman to win a WTA match (at age 45) since Navratilova in 2004 when she took out Peyton Stearns at the Citi Open in D.C.
Since then, Williams, now 46, has lost 11 consecutive matches on tour.
Serena Stats
- Williams is bidding to become the oldest woman to win a match at a major since Martina Navratilova (47 years, 8 months) earned a first-round win at Wimbledon in 2004.
- It will be the ten-year anniversary of her last two Wimbledon titles – in singles and doubles in 2016.
- Serena made her Wimbledon singles debut in 1998, defeating Lauren Golarsa of Italy, 6-4, 6-3. She would reach the third round that year. It was her third Grand Slam main draw.
- Williams has an 11-3 lifetime record against the Top 5 at Wimbledon, and she is 98-14 overall.
- Her worst loss at Wimbledon came in her most recent appearance, in 2022. Williams lost to No.115-ranked Harmony Tan, 7-5, 1-6, 7-6(7).
- Williams is 367 and 56 lifetime at the majors. The only other woman with more than 300 match wins at the majors is Martina Navratilova (306).
- The Williams sisters are 45-5 lifetime in Wimbledon doubles matches, 6-0 in Wimbledon finals, and 14-0 in Grand Slam finals.
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