Serena and Venus Williams received a doubles wild-card invitation to compete at Wimbledon, the All England Club announced Tuesday.
The grass-court tournament begins on June 29.
The decision comes on the heels of Serena Williams returning to competition and ending a nearly four-year retirement. She teamed with Victoria Mboko of Canada at the HSBC Championships in London last week, but their tournament ended when Mboko withdrew due to a knee injury in a singles match.
Serena is 44. Venus turns 46 on Wednesday.
The sisters combined to win 14 Grand Slam titles together in doubles, including six at Wimbledon.
Serena teamed up with Czech star Karolina Muchova at the Berlin Open on Tuesday and the pair went down to a first-round defeat as New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe and Mexico’s Giuliana Olmos notched a 6-4, 6-4 victory.
Williams and Muchova failed to convert any of their four break points.
After the match, Williams said the idea to play doubles with Venus originated with her 8-year-old daughter, Olympia.
“Well, I think it’s going to be fun,” Serena said. “My daughter Olympia told me that I should play with Venus. She’s always right.
“She’s like ‘Mom you should play with Venus’. She’s very serious, she’s very smart. She’s very wise. I said ‘OK Olympia, we’ll see if we can do it.'”
Routliffe called it an honor to be on the opposite side of the court as Serena.
“We love that Serena is playing doubles,” Routliffe said. “We play doubles all the time, and it makes people watch more doubles, so we love it.”
–Field Level Media
