LONDON, June 21 (Reuters) - American great Serena Williams will make a stunning return to singles at this year's Wimbledon after being handed the final wildcard by the All England Club on Sunday.
The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion was already assured of a return to the championships for the first time in four years after accepting a doubles wildcard with sister Venus.
"This is not a drill," the tournament wrote in a post on its Instagram account.
The announcement that the 44-year-old mother of two will play singles will provide a massive storyline for the Grand Slam tournament that starts on June 29. The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion returned to court after a four-year absence at this month's Queen's Club championships, playing doubles with Canada's Victoria Mboko. She also played doubles in Berlin this week. Williams, widely-regarded as the greatest female tennis player of all time, last played a singles match at Wimbledon as a wildcard in 2022 -- losing to Harmony Tan in round one. After that year's U.S. Open she said she would 'evolve away from tennis' although never officially retired. Wildcards are handed out by tournament organisers to players whose rankings do not permit automatic entry and are usually reserved for home players, those with illustrious career records or high-profile players returning from injury. Williams first appeared at Wimbledon in 1998, reaching the singles third round. She won the title for the first time in 2002, beating older sister Venus in the final, and went on to become the dominant force in the women's game, spending a combined total of 319 weeks as the WTA world number one. Williams added singles crowns in 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016 and also won six doubles titles at the grasscourt major with Venus.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman in London, additional reporting by Rohith Nair and Amy Tennery; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Pritha Sarkar)
