The Queen’s club in West London might be named after Queen Victoria, but there was only one queen in town on Tuesday evening – and only one Victoria, too.
At the age of 44 Serena Williams played her first professional tennis match in four years, teaming up with Victoria Mboko – 25 years her junior – in the HSBC Championship doubles. And, against all reasonable expectations, they won. They won by 7-6, 6-2 against No3 seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe, a pair of doubles specialists with three Grand Slam titles between them.
‘I had so much fun,’ said Serena on court. ‘Vicky was really able to hold up the team on the big points. It felt so natural playing with her.’
Why did she come back? ‘I had nothing better to do – my kids are out of school for the summer so why not!’
Mboko, just 19 and playing with her idol, added: ‘It’s such a privilege to play beside you.’
What an occasion this was. The stand reserved for Queen’s Club members and their guests – sporadically filled the rest of the day – was jam-packed.
Serena Williams made her return to tennis and dominated at the Queen’s Club
Partnering with Victoria Mboko, Williams won a doubles match in straight sets
It’s a strong launch point for a career comeback that could take Williams to Wimbledon
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion came out resplendent in pink and to a huge ovation; squeals of delight from the usually sedate patrons.
It was all very British and – aside from one cry of ‘Let’s go Serena, USA baby!’ – a great contrast to the cauldron of Arthur Ashe where Williams played what we expected to be the final match of her career in 2022.
She never used the ‘r’ word though, instead saying she was ‘evolving away from tennis’. Now, it seems, she is evolving back towards it, having given birth to her second child Adira – it was partly for her daughters’ benefit, Serena said on Sunday, that she has made her comeback.
That was the first of our curiosities: why? Now came the question of how; how would she play after four years’ absence?
Serena’s first involvement came in the third point, on the Mboko serve, when she netted a routine forehand volley – cue nervous murmurs from the crowd. She bounced back by hustling across the net and volleying away two winners in a row en route to a hold.
Overall it was seriously impressive. The reactions were sharp – she smashed away a ball that bounced up off the net tape – and the serve (is it the best of all time?) was still deadly, with one steaming down at 120mph.
Her footwork was not the best, naturally, although she did brilliantly to track a ball down well outside the tramlines and produce a winner. There was plenty of evidence that as she continues her comeback tour to Berlin and – surely – to Wimbledon, she will come very far from disgracing herself. A word for Mboko, whose colossal double-handed backhand was just too good for Routliffe and Melichar-Martinez.
It must be said that, in what felt like a party thrown in Serena’s honour, her opponents came bearing gifts: a couple of routine volleys missed at the end of the first set, then two double faults in the tiebreak. Even a VAR call came down in Williams’ favour. It was simply her day.
