Serena Williams will return to singles action at Wimbledon at the age of 44 after receiving the final wildcard spot into the draw.
The 23-time grand slam champion had already been confirmed to be playing doubles with her sister Venus at next week’s tournament.
Wimbledon had previously revealed seven of the eight recipients of wildcards into the women’s singles draw, leaving the final spot as “to be announced”.
It announced on Sunday evening that the final spot would go to the American great.
Williams last played singles at the 2022 US Open, the tournament where she seemingly waved farewell to the sport following a third-round defeat to Ajla Tomljanovic, having announced she would “evolving away” from tennis – although stopping short of saying the word “retirement”.
The seven-time Wimbledon champion last played at SW19 earlier that season, losing a first-round match to Harmony Tan in her first match in a year.
When asked during a recent appearance at the Berlin Open whether she would have been interested in the last remaining Wimbledon wildcard, Williams was coy.
“Oh my gosh, there’s some left?” she asked. “Well I better get to practice! You think I’m ready for singles? I need to get to work.”
Williams made her long-awaited return to tennis for the first time since 2022 when she played doubles with Victoria Mboko at Queen’s in London earlier this month.
The pair won their first-round match against third seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe, but injury for Mboko prevented a second.
The Canadian teenager slipped on the grass during her singles match the following day, suffering a left knee injury that forced her to withdraw from Wimbledon.
Williams then headed to Berlin and played a further doubles match with Karolina Muchova, but they lost to Giuliana Olmos and Routliffe in the first round.
The Williams sisters last played doubles together at the 2022 US Open. Venus Williams, who is 46, plays sporadically but still sometimes accepts wildcards into grand slams.
Together, Serena and Venus have won six Wimbledon doubles titles, a record they share with Suzanne Lenglen and Elizabeth Ryan, and their last title came in 2016.
With a combined age of 90, the Williams sisters will play their first-round doubles match on either Thursday 2 July or Friday 3 July at the start of the women’s doubles tournament.
