LONDON — The highly anticipated return of Serena Williams to the professional tennis scene at Queen’s Club concluded after just one match.
The 44-year-old Williams found herself without her doubles partner, 19-year-old Canadian sensation Victoria Mboko, who had to withdraw on Thursday due to a knee injury. Mboko injured herself during a singles matchup against Karolina Pliskova in the round of 16 on Wednesday.
The young talent from Burlington, Ontario, retired from her match after clutching her left knee while attempting to break serve in the second set. Following the match, she expressed to a physiotherapist that her knee felt “unstable at the moment.”
In her first professional outing since the 2022 U.S. Open, Williams partnered with Mboko to triumph over the third-seeded duo of Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe, winning 7-6 (2), 6-2 at the grass-court event on Tuesday.
The pair was slated to battle Leylah Fernandez from Laval, Quebec, and Laura Siegemund in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
Fernandez and Siegemund moved on to the semifinals, where they’ll compete against either the second-seeded combination of Gabriela Dabrowski from Ottawa and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani or the American team of Iva Jovic and McCartney Kessler.
Next week, Williams is scheduled to participate in doubles at the Berlin Open in Germany, although her partner has yet to be officially announced. Reports from The Times of London suggest it may be Karolina Muchova.
Williams, who boasts an impressive 23 Grand Slam singles titles, including seven at Wimbledon, had previously stated her intention to step away from tennis, describing the transition as “evolving” rather than simply retiring.
–-with files from The Canadian Press
