It's 'Serena being Serena' as Williams makes audacious singles return at Wimbledon

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This is the real deal now.

After initially returning in doubles, Serena Williams is ramping up her tennis return with singles, too.

At Wimbledon, of all places.

All eyes will be on the 44-year-old Williams when she competes in the first round of the grass-court Grand Slam, which starts Monday.

While she has played two doubles warmup matches recently, Williams hasn’t contested an official singles match in nearly four years.

ESPN commentator Mary Joe Fernandez called it “a sign of confidence” that Serena is prepared to enter the sport’s most prestigious tournament without having played a singles match in so long.

“But if anybody can do it,” Fernandez said, “it’s Serena.”

Added fellow ESPN commentator Patrick McEnroe, “I would call this Serena being Serena. It’s very Serena-like to do something audacious like this and I didn’t think for one minute she was coming back to play doubles (only).”

Williams has accepted wild card invitations for both singles and doubles (with sister Venus) from the All England Club.

Williams made her return this month by playing two doubles matches with two different partners. She won with Victoria Mboko at Queen’s Club and lost with Karolina Muchova at the Berlin Open.

Williams’ powerful serve and returns were on display but it remains to be seen how well she can cover the entire court and how much stamina she has for singles.

With 23 Grand Slam singles titles — seven of them at Wimbledon — and 14 more in doubles (all with Venus as her partner), nobody is questioning her qualifications, experience or aura.

“Hopefully she’ll be able to be competitive right off the bat,” McEnroe added.

Serena also swept the singles and doubles (with Venus) titles at the 2012 London Olympics, when the tennis competition was held on the hallowed grass of the All England Club. And she was the runner-up four times in singles at Wimbledon.

Serena will learn who her first-round opponent is on Friday when the singles draws for Wimbledon are held. Then her opening match will be either next Monday or Tuesday.

“No one’s going to want to face her,” said Fernandez, who coached Williams as Fed Cup captain and on the U.S. Olympic team.

The Williams sisters’ opening doubles match will come later in the opening week.

Despite her resume, Serena is by no means the favorite for the trophy.

Among the top contenders are top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, 2022 champion Elena Rybakina and freshly crowned French Open champion Mirra Andreeva, who at 19 is 25 years younger than Serena.

Sabalenka is looking to bounce back from a crushing defeat at Roland Garros, where she let a big lead slip away and didn’t win a game in the third set of a loss to Diana Shnaider in the quarterfinals.

Rybakina is known as one of the game’s best servers and her game adapts well to grass.

Andreeva reached the quarterfinals in London last year and will have more confidence after her performance in Paris.

Iga Swiatek is the defending champion and moves well on grass.

Since Serena has no ranking and won’t be seeded, she could potentially face any of the top players in the opening round.

With Carlos Alcaraz still sidelined with a right wrist injury that also kept him out of the French Open, Jannik Sinner is favored to defend his title — even after the top-ranked Sinner's stunning second-round meltdown in a Paris heat wave.

“It’s Sinner and then it’s everyone else,” McEnroe said. “That’s the bottom line on the men’s side.”

French Open champion Alexander Zverev has never been past the fourth round at the All England Club and lost his opening match a year ago.

Sinner’s biggest challenger could be 39-year-old Novak Djokovic, who like Serena is a seven-time Wimbledon champion. A 24-time Grand Slam champion overall, Djokovic has reached the semifinals or better in his last seven appearances at the All England Club.

“He’s so comfortable on the grass,” Fernandez said. “This is for me is where he has his best chance to win another major.”

So with a combined age of 83, Serena and Djokovic could be ready for a repeat of 2015, when they won Wimbledon in the same year.

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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis