Serena Williams will learn the scale of her singles comeback on Friday, when the Wimbledon draw could pit the 23-time Grand Slam champion against one of the sport’s leading players in her first major singles match in almost four years.
Williams, 44, accepted the eighth and final women’s singles wildcard on Sunday, the All England Club confirmed, completing an improbable return that until now had run entirely through the doubles court. Because she has been absent from the tour since the 2022 US Open, she holds no singles ranking — and therefore no seeding protection. When the 128-player draw is conducted on Friday, nothing prevents her name from landing alongside top seed and world No. 1 Sabalenka or reigning champion Świątek as early as the opening round.
That uncertainty has turned an already remarkable storyline into a draw-day cliffhanger. The Championships begin Monday, with Williams expected to play her first-round match on the opening Monday or Tuesday.
Her most recent singles appearance at a major came at Flushing Meadows in 2022, where she lost in the third round to Ajla Tomljanović and spoke of “evolving” away from the sport rather than formally retiring. She had not contested a competitive singles match since — until accepting Wimbledon’s invitation this week.
The comeback to date has been built on doubles. Williams returned at Queen’s Club earlier this month alongside Canada’s Victoria Mboko, winning their opening match before the pair withdrew when Mboko sustained a knee injury. She then partnered Karolína Muchová in Berlin, losing in the first round. She also holds a Wimbledon doubles wildcard with her sister Venus — the siblings’ first pairing at the All England Club in a decade.
Williams’ history at the grass-court major lends the return its weight. Seven of her 23 major singles titles were won here, most recently in 2016, alongside six women’s doubles crowns with Venus. Her last singles outing at the Championships came in 2022, when she fell in the opening round to Harmony Tan.
The absence of a ranking is the defining feature of her position. Seeds are shielded from one another in the early rounds, but an unranked wildcard can be drawn against anyone. Sabalenka, the world No. 1, and Świątek, the defending champion, are the marquee names Williams could meet — though any of the leading contenders could just as easily emerge as her first opponent when the draw is made.
A victory of any kind would carry historical resonance. Williams already holds the Open Era record as the oldest woman to win a Grand Slam singles title, set at the 2017 Australian Open aged 35. Should she win a match at this year’s Championships, she would rank among the oldest women to claim a singles victory at a major in the Open Era. ESPN has reported she would become the fourth-oldest to do so; the clearest precedent for a win at that age is Martina Navratilova, who took a Wimbledon first-round match in 2004 at the age of 47.
Williams has consistently played down expectations. Asked in Berlin last week whether she was ready for singles, she laughed and said she needed to “go to work.” She has framed the return chiefly around her two young daughters. “It’s really about my kids getting to see me play,” she said at Queen’s Club.
For now, the questions outnumber the answers — and Friday’s ceremony will supply the first of them. The draw is expected to be among the most closely watched in recent memory, with a single ball potentially setting one of the sport’s greatest champions against its current No. 1 before the tournament has even begun.
