London —Serena and Venus Williams are bringing their doubles partnership back at Wimbledon.The All England Club announced a doubles wild card invitation on Tuesday for the sisters to take part in the tournament, which starts in less than two weeks.The move comes after 44-year-old Serena recently returned to competition after nearly four years away from professional tennis.
Venus, who has still been competing sporadically, turns 46 on Wednesday.The Williams sisters have won 14 Grand Slam titles together in doubles, including six at Wimbledon - the first of them in 2000 and the last in 2016.
Serena won her first doubles match with partner Victoria Mboko at Queen's Club in London last week and was slated to play doubles with Karolina Muchova at the Berlin Open later on Tuesday.The Williams sisters last played doubles together at the 2022 U.S.
Open, where they lost their opening match.That was the first time they'd played doubles together in 4-1/2 years.
Serena and Mboko won their opening match at Queen's Club but then had to withdraw after Mboko injured her knee in a singles match.Serena hasn't ruled out a return in singles, as well, and one of the eight wild card spots for women's singles was left as "to be announced."Other Wimbledon draws Recent French Open finalist Maja Chwalinska received a singles wild card, as did six British women: Harriet Dart, Alicia Dudeney, Hannah Klugman, Mika Stojsavljevic, Katie Swan, and Mimi Xu.
Men's singles wild cards went to Stan Wawrinka and Grigor Dimitrov and four British players: Jacob Fearnley, Arthur Fery, Jack Pinnington Jones and Toby Samuel.Wawrinka, a three-time Grand Slam champion whose best result at Wimbledon was reaching the quarterfinals twice, plans to retire at the end of the year.
Dimotrov led eventual champion Jannik Sinner two sets to none in the round of 16 last year before having to retire early in the third due to an injured pectoral muscle.Dimitrov is now ranked...