Wimbledon will be great place for comeback — Serena

Serena Williams of the US, playing with by Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur (R), returns the ball to Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching during their women’s doubles quarter final tennis match on day four of the Eastbourne International tennis tournament in Eastbourne, southern England on June 22, 2022. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP)

Limping off Centre Court with a torn hamstring while fighting tears is not how Serena Williams wants to remember Wimbledon.

Williams has not been featured in a competitive singles match since she suffered that injury in SW19 in 2021, but the 23-time grand slam champion is making her comeback at the All England Club.

The 40-year-old has seven Wimbledon singles titles under her belt, the most recent of which came in 2016, while she reached the final in 2018 and 2019, only to lose to Angelique Kerber and Serena Halep.

Now, having put her hamstring issue behind her, Williams is determined to create a new lasting memory in London.

“Yeah, it was a lot of motivation, to be honest,” she told reporters on Saturday (yesterday) when reflecting on how her previous Wimbledon campaign ended.

“It was always something since the match ended that was always on my mind. So it was a tremendous amount of motivation for that.

“You never want any match to end like that. It’s really unfortunate.”

Williams returned to competition last week, playing doubles with Ons Jabeur in Eastbourne, and makes her highly anticipated return to Wimbledon facing Harmony Tan, a 24-year-old from France who is ranked 113th.

Despite being just one short of Margaret Court’s long-standing record haul of 24 majors, Williams is not making any lofty predictions as to how far she can go at Wimbledon.

“I have high goals, but also… I don’t know,” she said.