1,375 days later, Serena Williams resumed her life as a professional tennis player to an uncharacteristic roar from a usually reserved Queen’s Club crowd filled to the brim. As she warmed up on the grass, flanked by a formidable, precocious partner in Victoria Mboko, Williams could not suppress her smile.
Williams marked her comeback at Queen’s with a stellar victory alongside Mboko as they defeated the third seeds, Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe, 7-6 (2), 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals.
The buildup to this moment has been unlike any comeback before this. The prospect of Williams potentially returning became global news not due to her own announcement, but simply because her name had returned to the drug testing pool last December. This news prompted a forceful response from Williams on social media: “Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy,” she wrote. After months of rumours, Williams officially confirmed her return to doubles last Monday, midway through the French Open.
Williams is a 23-time singles grand slam champion, the women’s open-era record holder, and a 16-time doubles grand slam champion. Now 44, Williams has not competed since her loss at the 2022 US Open. Although Williams had described herself as “evolving” away from the sport rather than retiring, she had signed the documents that officially categorised her as a retired player.
There were plenty of reminders of Williams’s age and her four-year absence. Her return of serve was poor throughout the first set, her movement below par and it also took some time for her to find her range on groundstrokes. There were a handful of easy misses throughout.
However, her serve, the greatest weapon women’s tennis has ever seen, is still sublime. At 5-5, 30-30, the first set hanging in the balance, Williams cracked a 120mph ace down the T. She also volleyed extremely well and her groundstrokes improved. She was flanked by an excellent partner in Mboko, who at just 19 is ranked inside of the singles top 10. To her credit, Williams allowed Mboko to lead, with the Canadian serving first in both sets and being elected as the receiver during the sudden-death points at deuce.
Throughout her career, Williams has been used to crowds cheering for her opponents, for the underdogs, but here she had the west London audience in the palm of her hand. Their forceful cheering clearly made a difference, with Melichar-Martinez and Routliffe, two of the best doubles players in the world, crumbling under the pressure imposed by a packed 9,000-strong crowd.
After a gripping 90 minutes on Andy Murray Arena, the climax could not have been more fitting. It was Williams who was charged with serving out her first victory in over four years. She slammed the door shut the same way she has done so many times before: ace, ace, unreturned serve. Job done.
