Serena Williams of the U.S. in action during her first round match against Australia’s Maya Joint.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Serena Williams arrives for practice ahead of the Wimbledon Open.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Serena Williams keeps on commenting half-jokingly about how “it’s summer” and “the kids aren’t in school” as the reasoning for her tennis comeback at age 44.

Turns out family might really be the biggest factor behind Williams’ decision to return to the pro game after nearly four years away.

Her two daughters, eight-year-old Olympia and Adira, who is almost three, have been with her every step of the way as she played two doubles warmup matches before accepting wild card invitations to both the singles and doubles (with older sister Venus) competitions at Wimbledon, which starts Monday.

“Just finished a mean game of duck duck goose,” Williams said on X shortly after her singles wild card was announced last weekend.

A big hint about Williams’ return came when she posted a video of a training session last month with Adira on court helping with a resistance band.

“Rumor has it…I got a new trainer,” Williams said in her Instagram caption.

Christopher Eubanks, a recently retired pro turned Tennis Channel commentator, saw up close how Williams interacted with her family at her first tournament back at Queen’s Club, where he performed an on-court interview with the American great and doubles partner Victoria Mboko.

“There’s no changes to her legacy that will come as a result of this return. I don’t see anyone changing their mind about where Serena Williams stands all-time,” Eubanks told The Associated Press on Thursday of the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion.

“This is about more than just records. At this point, it’s more about family,” said Eubanks, who will be working for ESPN at Wimbledon. “Not just playing in front of her daughters, but having her daughters sit there and watch her train every day and have to wake up and put in the long, hard yards and doing fitness and doing treatment. For her daughters to have to watch her be super disciplined, that has to be just as much of a factor.” When Williams last played in singles at the 2022 U.S. Open, Olympia had just turned five and Adira wasn’t even born yet.

“They will forever know (Williams) as, Oh, you know, mommy is the GOAT of tennis,'” Eubanks said, using the acronym for “greatest of all time.” “But then if they have memories of being able to actually watch her go through that training, to me, that feels like what this is about more than anything else,” Eubanks added.

He seems to be on to something, because the daughters did not seem overly enthusiastic about her match at Queen’s.

“Adira wanted to go to the toy store, and Olympia wanted to know what was for dinner,” Williams said.

Court-side seat

Eubanks had a court-side seat for Williams’ match with Mboko and felt like her ball striking was “as good as it’s ever looked.” He was also “really impressed with her serve.” “A lot of times that can be a very difficult thing to get back after having an extended time off and her serve looked great,” Eubanks said.

“She had one serve up near 120 mph. And the purity with which the ball comes off of her strings off the ground on both the forehand and the backhand side looks as dialed in as I’ve seen.”

Decelerating difficulties

The biggest challenge for Williams in singles will likely be her fitness and movement, which on grass is more nuanced than on other surfaces.

“The hardest part for me I always felt was the decelerating and the stopping because you have to take extra steps in order to come to a stop,” said Eubanks, who reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 2023 and a career-high ranking of No. 29 that year.

Williams won the last of her seven Wimbledon singles titles a decade ago “Whereas on a hard court you can kind of plant your foot, you can slide, you can decelerate a lot easier,” Eubanks said. “But on the grass it takes a lot more steps and a lot more pounding on the body before you can change direction. So that’s going to be the biggest thing to watch: Her ability to decelerate and stop out of the corners in order to change direction.” Williams might come forward to the net more and attempt to end points more quickly than she used to — kind of how Novak Djokovic has used his volleying skills more in recent years.

“That would be,” Eubanks said, “what I would expect to see.”

Richard Williams

Eubanks is only 30 and the Williams sisters were role models for him as a kid.

“They were always kind of the guiding light,” he said. “They’ve been a huge influence on me personally.” Before last month’s French Open, Eubanks was invited to a dinner for Black players hosted by Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend.

Coco Gauff, retiring Frenchman Gael Monfils and doubles specialist Asia Muhammad also attended.

The Williams sisters and their father, Richard Williams, were a big conversation topic.

“Everybody in that room, at some point their parents were heavily involved in their tennis,” Eubanks said.

“Our parents all mentioned Richard Williams and the Williams sisters and how they did it and everyone kind of bonding over, Man, Richard Williams, his name went all over the world.””

Published – June 27, 2026 01:40 am IST

Maya Joint of Australia. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

Serena Williams. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

Serena Williams made a winning return to tennis after four years in retirement as the American legend partnered Victoria Mboko in a first-round doubles victory at the Queen’s Club on Tuesday (June 9, 2026).

Williams rolled back the years alongside Canadian teenager Mboko in a 7-6 (7/2), 6-2 win over third seeds Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez at the grass-court tournament in west London.

It was like she had never been away as the 44-year-old produced her trademark thunderous serve and fearsome ground-strokes to the delight of a capacity crowd, including her two young daughters Olympia and Adira and husband Alexis Ohanian.

After appearing to end her glittering career four years ago, the 23-time Grand Slam champion stunned the sporting world on Monday (June 8, 2026) with her shock announcement that she would compete in the Queen’s Club doubles.

Williams’ decision to pick up a racquet in a competitive setting for the first time since losing to Ajla Tomljanovic at the 2022 US Open had sparked questions about the wisdom of her move.

Would one of the sport’s all-time greats be able to approach her past excellence, or would she be a shadow of her former self?

Williams hadn’t played in a tournament since saying she was “evolving away” from tennis in 2022, so inevitably there were signs of rust.

But she delivered a typically combative performance that will intensify questions over a potential return to singles action at Wimbledon, which starts later in June.

“It was so fun. I had so much fun playing with Victoria,” Williams said.

“I never got to play here before, it was always just the men. It feels really special to play somewhere so iconic.”

“I had nothing better to do! I got tired of sitting at home. My kids are out of school for the summer, so why not?”

Williams, who will take part in the doubles at the Berlin Open from June 15-21, has not won a Grand Slam singles title since the 2017 Australian Open.

On Sunday (June 7, 2026), she played down suggestions that she would extend her return to singles competition.

But she has won the Wimbledon singles trophy seven times and the prospect of competing at the All England Club in some capacity will be hard to resist, especially if she continues her run at Queen’s.

Back in style

Dressed in a white top, pink skirt and matching shoes, Williams arrived on court to cheers and a standing ovation from the capacity crowd in the Andy Murray Arena.

As former Olympic skiing gold medallist Lindsey Vonn watched from the stands, fans held up signs saying ‘Welcome back Serena’.

Offering only a brief wave in acknowledgement of the acclaim, Williams was firmly focused on her first competitive match for 1,375 days.

The first point of Williams’ return was served by Mboko and ended in her partner sending a volley out without the American hitting a shot.

Williams’ first touch of the ball came on the next point when she dumped a volley into the net.

She made amends by hitting the first winner of her comeback with another volley to the delight of the crowd.

Williams’ ground-strokes were hit with enough accuracy to keep her in the rallies, while her competitive instincts were as strong as ever.

She celebrated with a clenched fist after a ferocious smash secured a break for a 4-1 lead.

Williams had said the chance to play in front of her children was the driving force behind her sensational return and she provided a memorable moment for them.

After unleashing a superb backhand winner from an acute angle off the court, she broke into a broad grin and spread her arms out in a gesture that suggested she was surprising even herself.

Williams had no problem approaching the devastating service speed of her glory days, thudding down one unreturnable delivery that reached 120mph late in the first set.

She roared “lets go” after the pair raced through the tie-break to take the opening set.

The 19-year-old Mboko was the driving force in the second set, earning admiring fist-bumps from Williams as she unloaded winner after winner.

Fittingly though, it was Serena’s lethal serve sealed a victory four years in the making.

Published – June 10, 2026 06:49 am IST

File image of Serena Williams© AFP

Serena Williams has criticised a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, alleging that she was not allowed to enter with her children. The Olympian said she and her family were not permitted to enter The Peninsula’s rooftop restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, in a post published on X (formerly Twitter). Ms Williams wrote in the post that she had never been refused entry while her family was there.

“Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to the rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places but never with my kids. Always a first. #Olympic2024,” she said on the microblogging website.

Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places but never with my kids. Always a first. #Olympic2024pic.twitter.com/lEGJR5WoEn

— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) August 5, 2024

Maxime Mannevy, a staff member at the Peninsula’s rooftop restaurant, told Variety that Ms Williams appeared “unrecognizable” when she arrived pushing a stroller alongside another lady. “When she came there were only two tables available and they had been reserved by clients of the hotel,” she said, adding that she was not working when Ms Williams visited the restaurant.

“My colleague didn’t recognize her and feels terrible, but he told her what he would have told any other client, which is to wait downstairs in the bar for a table to become available. That was absolutely nothing personal.”

The restaurant reacted to the Grand Slam champion’s claim, with employees reiterating their reasons for turning away Ms Williams and her children from a table. “In response to Ms Williams’ tweet, for whom we have the utmost admiration and respect, as we do for all our esteemed guests, we reiterate our deepest apologies that we were not able to offer her a table at our rooftop bar when she arrived with her family and without a reservation,” the hotel said in a statement to the New York Post.

They said, “We do always try to make space for walk-in guests but sometimes this is not possible.”

“On August 5th, our rooftop bar was indeed fully booked, and the only unoccupied tables at that time belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was also fully reserved. As an alternative, Ms Williams was offered an outside table downstairs at the hotel’s La Terrasse Kléber. We have always been honored to welcome you and will always be to welcome you again,” the statement added.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion initially came to Paris in late July, just in time for the “unforgettable” Olympic opening ceremony, which she attended as a torch bearer. Along with fellow tennis champion Rafael Nadal, nine-time medallist Carl Lewis, French greats Zinedine Zidane, Teddy Riner, Marie-Jose Perec, and Tony Parker, Ms Williams joined a long tradition of athletes carrying the torch. She has also won four Olympic gold medals over the course of her career.

Tennis at the Summer Olympics is always one of the most anticipated events, but Paris 2024 might just take the cake. Numerous storylines from the world of tennis are in play, as the iconic Roland Garros welcomes the Olympics. The king of Roland Garros – Rafael Nadal – may be playing competitive tennis for the final time. He will be going for a third individual gold. His age-old rival Novak Djokovic is aiming for the one gold missing from his illustrious cabinet. Olympics 2024 is also certainly Andy Murray’s swansong. And between all this, a new demon has taken the world of tennis by storm.

Carlos Alcaraz heads into Paris 2024 having conquered the two most revered courts on earth in succession, winning the French Open and Wimbledon this year. However, perhaps more than the individual clash of titans, fans are also eagerly looking forward to Alcaraz and Nadal playing the men’s doubles together, representing Spain. A poetic pass of the baton from Nadal to Alcaraz sets up an almost Shakespearean storyline.

For India, Rohan Bopanna will pair up with N Sriram Balaji for the men’s doubles category, whilst Sumit Nagal will play the men’s singles.

Format

In Paris 2024, much like every other edition, tennis will have five separate categories: women’s singles, men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles.

Apart from five editions, the bronze medal has been won by the winner of the match between the two losing semi-finalists. It remains the same in Paris.

Since 2021,  the deciding set (third) has a 7-point tiebreaker game to decide the match at 6-all. Should the tiebreaker game be tied at 6-all, whoever scores two straight points wins it.

History

The United States hold the most Olympic golds in the Open era, as well as all-time. Great Britain were the country to beat in the Amateur Era, but the United States have dominated in the Open Era.

The Williams sisters hold the most individual medals in Olympics history, but it is Venus who has one more than Serena. Both boast three golds in women’s doubles and a women’s singles gold, but Venus also won a silver in the Rio 2016 mixed doubles.

Among active male players, Andy Murray has three medals, two of them men’s singles gold (2012, 2016). Rafael Nadal has a singles gold (2008) and a doubles gold (2016). Alexander Zverev is the reigning men’s singles champion.

Leander Paes won India’s only Olympic tennis medal in Atlanta 1996, with a men’s singles bronze. Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi narrowly missed out on a doubles medal in Athens 2004, finishing fourth.