Tennis icon Serena Williams is heading back to Wimbledon singles competition after the All England Club awarded her the tournament’s final wildcard on Sunday.
The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion had already secured a spot in the doubles draw alongside her sister Venus through a separate wildcard, marking her first return to the championships in four years. But Sunday’s announcement confirmed she’ll also be competing solo.
The tournament made the news official through its Instagram account with a simple but emphatic message: “This is not a drill.”
The addition of the 44-year-old mother of two to the singles draw gives the Grand Slam event a major storyline heading into its June 29 start date. Williams, who holds 23 Grand Slam singles titles and is widely considered the greatest female tennis player in history, had stepped away from the court for four years before recently making her way back to competitive play.
Earlier this month, she played doubles at the Queen’s Club championships alongside Canada’s Victoria Mboko, and she also took part in doubles competition in Berlin this week.
Her last singles appearance at Wimbledon came in 2022 — also as a wildcard — when she fell to Harmony Tan in the opening round. Following that year’s U.S. Open, Williams said she would “evolve away from tennis,” though she never made an official retirement announcement.
Wildcards at Wimbledon are typically given to players whose current rankings don’t qualify them for automatic entry. They are generally reserved for home-country players, those with exceptional career achievements, or notable players making comebacks from injury.
Williams first set foot on Wimbledon’s courts back in 1998, advancing to the third round of singles. She claimed her first title there in 2002, defeating her older sister Venus in the final. From there, she became the defining force in women’s tennis, accumulating a combined 319 weeks as the WTA’s world number one.
She went on to win additional Wimbledon singles titles in 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2016. Alongside Venus, she also captured six doubles titles at the grass-court major.
