Serena and Venus Williams receive Wimbledon doubles wildcard, setting up first joint appearance since 2022

The announcement confirms weeks of speculation surrounding the return of the most successful sister act in tennis history. Wimbledon begins on 29 June, and both women are using the lead-in grass events to prepare. Serena, 44, came out of a four-year retirement earlier this month at Queen’s Club, where she played with Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko. That partnership ended when Mboko injured her knee. This week Serena is in Berlin alongside Karolina Muchova; on Tuesday they lost 4-6, 4-6 to Giuliana Olmos and Erin Routliffe. Venus, who turns 46 shortly, resumed her own career in mid-2025 after a long break.

I felt good today. I felt more agile, more solid and faster than my first match at Queen’s. Overall I felt pretty good, physically and in speed. On grass you need to be fast.

A shared Wimbledon legacy

The sisters have won six Wimbledon doubles titles together (2000, 2002, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2016) and 14 Grand Slam doubles crowns overall, a tally matched only by Gigi Fernández and Natasha Zvereva and bettered only by the 20 of Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver. Across singles, Serena holds seven SW19 trophies and Venus five, while the pair also own three Olympic golds from Sydney 2000, Beijing 2008 and London 2012. Their last major together was the 2022 US Open.

The path back

The wildcard request was not a surprise. Andrea Petkovic, the tournament’s director of excitement, said rumours had been circulating for two months and the request from Williams’s camp arrived once the player re-registered with the World Anti-Doping Agency. Serena’s first competitive outing since 2022 was at Queen’s, where she and Mboko won a round. The Berlin doubles defeat, played hours before the Wimbledon announcement, was the second step.

Welcome back. Together again.

Beyond the Williams sisters

Other wildcards issued Tuesday include three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka, who is set to retire at the end of the season, and former semi-finalist Grigor Dimitrov on the men’s side. 2021 runner-up Matteo Berrettini remains in contention, while Nick Kyrgios and Alexander Bublik received a men’s doubles invitation. On the women’s side French Open runner-up Maja Chwalinska of Poland was on the list; one women’s singles slot remains open, with a second batch of wildcards expected this week. Katie Boulter and Heather Watson were awarded a doubles spot for the home nation.

What lies ahead

Serena has not yet committed to returning to singles and said it is unclear whether she will. Both sisters have spoken about wanting their daughters to watch them play. The doubles draw will be one of the most-watched side-stories of the fortnight, with the last Wimbledon appearance for either sister having been Serena’s first-round singles loss to Harmony Tan in 2022. The tournament runs from 29 June to 12 July at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club.