Serena Williams’ return ends prematurely at Queen’s Club due to Mboko injury | Tennis

Serena Williams’s first tournament since coming out of retirement has ended prematurely after her partner Victoria Mboko was forced to withdraw from the Queen’s Club tournament after injuring her knee when slipping on the grass in her singles match on Wednesday.

Williams made a sensational return to competition at 44 after a four-year absence on Tuesday alongside Mboko as the pair defeated the third seeds Nicole Melichar Martinez and Erin Routliffe 7-6(2), 6-2. The pair were scheduled to face Leylah Fernandez and Laura Siegemund on Thursday afternoon.

Mboko, the third seed at Queen’s Club, played her opening singles match a day later after receiving a first-round bye. Mboko had earned a break point in set two after losing the first set against the former No 1 Karolina Pliskova before an extremely bad fall, slipping on the grass after being wrong-footed. She immediately held her left knee and was forced to retire from the match.

The courts at Queen’s Club are known for being some of the most high-quality grass surfaces on the tour but the slick nature of the courts make them particularly slippery in the first days of the tournament. At past editions of the event men’s players fallen and injured themselves in similar ways, losing their footing after being wrong-footed on the grass.

Williams will next head to Berlin, where she has received a doubles wildcard, and she is expected to be among the doubles wildcard entries at Wimbledon when they are announced next week.

However, the immediate future of one of the best young players on the tour is far more opaque as Mboko navigates the uncertainty of injury.