Serena Williams will be playing at Wimbledon this year, after all. The All England Club announced Tuesday on Twitter that the 40-year-old American has received an invite to the tournament’s singles draw.
Williams has been out of competition since suffering an injury during the first set of her first-round match at Wimbledon a year ago. Her name did not appear on the list of participants that the Grand Slam on grass surface released at the beginning of the month.
But Williams was among the six women who received wildcards on Tuesday. The other five are British: Katie Boulter, Jodie Burrage, Sonay Kartal, Yuriko Miyazaki and Katie Swan. Two other women will receive invitations in “due time”, the All England Club said.
Seven of the eight wildcards in the men’s draw were also announced, one of which went to Stan Wawrinka, three-time Grand Slam champion.
Earlier in the day, Williams posted a photo of her white sneakers on Instagram, as a sign of her plans, and added a caption: “SW and SW19. It’s a date. 2022. See you there. Let’s go”.
“SW” are his initials, of course. And “SW19” is Wimbledon’s postcode.
Williams has won seven of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles — a record in the open era — at Wimbledon, most recently in 2016.
She was the runner-up in the 2018 and 2019 editions (the tournament was canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic).
In 2021, Williams slipped on the grass and his right leg gave out. It was just the second mid-match exit from a Grand Slam in his career and the first since 1998.
Away from the courts ever since, Williams — who climbed to the top of the women’s rankings for the first time in July 2002 — was listed this week as No. 1,208 on the WTA rankings. That ranking did not allow him to enter the main draw directly.
With Williams out, Ash Barty first and Iga Swiatek later went on to dominate. Barty won Wimbledon last year and the Australian Open this January to cement himself as world No. 1, but the 25-year-old abruptly retired in March.
Swiatek rose to the top and responded by stringing together a 35-match winning streak, which included winning a second French Open title this month.
That unbeaten streak exceeds the 34-win streak Williams linked in 2013 and equals the mark held by Williams’ older sister, Venus, for the longest since 2000.
Williams’ presence at the All England Club adds another intriguing element to this year’s edition, marked by the banning of players from Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine, followed by the decision of the WTA and ATP tours to do not distribute points. The centenary of the inauguration of the Central Court is also celebrated and for the first time matches will be staged on Sunday in the middle of the tournament.