Odds are that Serena Williams won’t win Wimbledon.
But then, Williams has beaten the odds — and most of her competitors — for the better part of three decades, which is why millions will be watching her return to competitive singles at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club this week.
At 44, Williams hasn’t played a competitive singles match in nearly four years. The tournament announced last weekend that the 23-time Grand Slam singles winner would take a wild-card entry into the singles competition. Serena and her sister, Venus, had already received wild-card entries into the women’s doubles tournament, which they have won six times, most recently in 2016.
Williams’ timing is likely an indictment of the current crop of women’s tennis stars.
Speculation about her return to singles action abounded after Williams announced that she would play doubles in grass tournaments that lead up to Wimbledon. The question was less if than when — whether she would wait until the hardcourt U.S. Open, which she has won six times, or resume her career on the grass at Wimbledon, where she has won seven singles titles.
To those wondering why, or why now, Williams offered an intriguing comment during a press conference earlier this month: “I don’t need to win,” she said. “I’ve won more than most people have in their whole lives. I don’t have anything to lose. Everything is just a gain.”
Is this next chapter of her legendary career really about her children, ages 8 and 2, seeing her play, or is one of the game’s greatest competitors driven to take one last stab at tying or surpassing Margaret Court’s record for the most women’s singles Grand Slam titles?
Either way, Williams’ timing is likely an indictment of the current crop of women’s tennis stars.
After all, if Williams thought the women’s game had produced a dynasty-level force in her absence, she might have stayed on the sidelines. But no single player has dominated the landscape in recent years. Champions come and go with remarkable frequency.
Thirty-six Grand Slam tournaments have been played since Williams last won a slam (the 2017 Australian Open, when she was pregnant with her first child). There have been 18 different winners in those 36 events. Some would call that parity. For Williams, it’s an opportunity. Yes, Iga Swiatek has won six and Aryna Sabalenka has won four, but that would hardly signal invincibility to someone with Williams’ competitive spirit.
There have been 18 different winners in the 36 Grand Slam tournaments since Williams last won a slam. Some would call that parity. For Williams, it’s an opportunity.
Speaking of Swiatek, Williams could face last year’s Wimbledon women’s champion if she reaches the third round. But first, Williams will face the world’s 53rd-ranked player, Maya Joint. For perspective: Williams won her first seven slams before the 20-year-old Australian was even born.
For all the adjectives that could aptly describe Williams’ competitive dominance, there are realities of mortality that simply can’t be ignored. Williams is trying to become the oldest winner ever of a singles slam event. The last such winner was 35 years old. That someone? Serena Williams.
There is a reason Novak Djokovic’s last slam title was in 2023. Certainly, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz burst onto the men’s scene, but the physical limitations that come with being in his late 30s began to catch up to Djokovic. At 39, he is still one of the world’s best players, but he, too, has found the passage of time impossible to ignore. And Williams is five years older.
To win Wimbledon, Williams would have to win seven consecutive matches. As of Friday afternoon, she was a 55-1 long shot on FanDuel. For a 44-year-old who hasn’t played competitive singles since 2022, those are surprisingly respectable odds. They speak to the esteem with which she is held even at such an uncertain stage.
There are some positives for Williams going into the tournament: She is far slimmer than she was at the U.S. Open in 2022. (She announced last year that she was taking the GLP-1 drug Zepbound, managed through Ro, a telehealth company for which Williams is a paid ambassador and her husband is an investor.) She’s going to need the ability to chase down balls as opponents try to test her endurance. Another positive? Women’s tennis is best two out of three sets, less taxing than the men’s best of five.
Another data point to watch in this comeback quest: How often we see her play this summer could be a clue as to how seriously Williams is trying to regain her top form. If she takes wild-card entries for other top-tier WTA tournaments leading into and beyond the U.S. Open, it would suggest this isn’t just a lark.
Ultimately, there is no downside for tennis in a Williams comeback. An enormous fan favorite, she’s going to draw crowds wherever and whenever she plays.
That said, the smart money says Williams won’t win Wimbledon. She didn’t win a Grand Slam in the five years after her 2017 Australian Open win. She didn’t reach a slam final in her last three years playing competitive singles. But this is about more than whether she bucks the odds of one slam. How many of us would have killed to have one extra season with Kobe, Gretzky, Jeter or Montana? We salivate when we think Tiger Woods might tee up again in a golf major.
We’re getting that now with Serena. We should enjoy this run for whatever it is and however long it lasts.
The post Count me in for the Serena Williams comeback — however long it lasts appeared first on MS NOW.
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