Some nice news for tennis fans, as 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams just officially announced that she is returning to professional competitive tennis!
We got asked what racquet she will use and we assume the one she used when retiring, but we cannot be sure as she might have gotten used to something else during her years away from the tour. You can learn more about Serena Williams’ racquet here.
Nearly four years after her emotional farewell at the 2022 US Open, the 44-year-old icon has accepted a wildcard invitation to compete in the doubles draw at the upcoming HSBC Championships at the Queen’s Club in London, kicking off on June 8.
Rumors had been swirling since December when it was revealed Williams had re-entered the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s (ITIA) drug-testing pool (a mandatory six-month prerequisite for any player planning a return to the tour). Though she initially tried to downplay the internet frenzy on social media, she broke her silence on Monday morning with a video of herself on a grass court in an all-white Nike tennis kit, captioned simply: “Good news travels fast.”
Having completed the 6-month waiting period mandated under anti-doping regulations, Williams can now compete on the WTA Tour. She has not played competitively since end of 2022, when she lost to Ajla Tomljanovic in the third round of the US Open.
In an official statement released by the tournament, Williams expressed her excitement about returning to her most dominant surface:
“Queen’s Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter. Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career, and I’m excited to be back competing on one of the sport’s most iconic stages.”
Good news travels fast. pic.twitter.com/R7x7EFPUJ8
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) June 1, 2026
Williams – Mboko
Williams seems to be set to team up with 18-year-old Canadian rising star Victoria Mboko in the doubles draw, however, nothing has been officially confirmed yet. The pairing creates a fascinating dynamic: an iconic mother-of-two who won her first Grand Slam singles title in 1999 (seven years before Mboko was even born) playing alongside a teenager who grew up idolising her.
The Numbers
Let’s look at some of the amazing numbers of WIlliams career.
| Milestone | Career Statistic |
| Grand Slam Singles Titles | 23 (Open Era Record) |
| Grand Slam Doubles Titles | 14 (All won with sister Venus Williams) |
| Weeks Ranked World No. 1 | 319 weeks |
| Total WTA Singles Titles | 73 titles |
Eyes on Wimbledon?
When Williams walked away from the sport in 2022, she famously wrote in an essay for Vogue that she disliked the word “retirement,” preferring to say she was “evolving away” from tennis to focus on her family and business ventures. That linguistic choice now looks entirely deliberate.
While her current commitment is strictly for doubles action at Queen’s Club, there will surely be a lot of rumors online in the coming days of a wildcard appearance at Wimbledon later this summer.