Serena Williams withdrew from the doubles draw at Wimbledon on Saturday due to a knee injury.
Williams had received a wild-card entry to play alongside her sister, Venus, but tweaked her knee in her first-round singles loss to Maya Joint on Tuesday. The Australian posted a 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 victory over Williams, 44, who was competing in her first professional singles match in nearly four years.
“I’m heartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles,” the 23-time Grand Slam winner wrote on Instagram. “Coming back to compete again has been a gift, and the opportunity to play alongside Venus once more meant the world to me. I did everything I could but unfortunately my knee just isn’t ready to compete.”
Serena Williams gave a tease as to her future in her Instagram post.
“All I can say is stay tuned to a city near you,” she wrote.
The sisters, who won the grass-court Grand Slam doubles title six times (most recently in 2016), were slated to take on Argentina’s Solana Sierra and Colombia’s Camila Osorio at the All England Club.
Tournament director Jamie Baker said the first-round doubles match was pushed back to give Serena Williams “as much time” as possible to recover. All other first-round matches in the draw were contested Thursday and Friday.
Venus, 46, and Serena Williams last played doubles at the 2022 U.S. Open, losing in the first round to Linda Noskova and Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic.
–Field Level Media
