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Serena Williams fought hard but ultimately lost in her first singles match since 2022 on Tuesday at Wimbledon, falling to 20-year-old Australian Maya Joint, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3, in the first round on Centre Court.
There’s a common axiom in sports that “Father Time is undefeated” and that rang true in London on Tuesday night.
Williams, 44, had not played a singles match since the 2022 U.S. Open, when she lost to Ajla Tomljanovic in the third round in what many believed would be the final match of her legendary career.
Instead, nearly four years later, she walked back onto the grass at the All England Club.
And not just any court.
Centre Court.
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The same court where Williams won seven of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles, an Olympic gold medal and authored some of the most dominant moments of the modern women’s tennis era.
This one, obviously, was different.
Williams entered Wimbledon as a wild card and with far more questions than expectations.
How much tennis did she still have in her legs?
Could her serve still carry her through pressure games?
Could one of the greatest competitors in sports history summon enough of the old Serena to make this more than a ceremonial comeback?
For a while, the answer looked complicated.
Joint, the 87th-ranked women’s player in the world, came out sharp and took the opening set 6-3. After the set got to 3-3, with each player holding each of her first three serves, Joint won the next three games, breaking Serena once to take the first set.
It was a reminder that nostalgia does not win tennis matches, especially at Wimbledon, where the grass can punish even small dips in movement and timing.
But Williams’ fought back in the second set.
Despite being broken in the first game and falling down 3-1, Williams eventually forced a tiebreak. The 20-year-old Australian had match point with a 6-5 lead in the tiebreak, but Williams won the next three points to square the match.
Williams came out strong in the third set, getting the first break to take a 2-1 lead. But that’s when it seemed that Williams’ age started to become a bigger factor.
Her daughters, Olympia and Adira, were in attendance, along with her husband Alexis Ohanian and sister Venus Williams. Venus is also scheduled to team with Serena in doubles at Wimbledon, giving the tournament another Williams sisters moment after years of uncertainty over whether fans would ever see that again.
Williams has spent most of the past four years away from the tour after saying in 2022 that she was “evolving away” from tennis. She never fully closed the door, though.
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She won Wimbledon singles titles in 2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016. She reached four other Wimbledon finals. She and Venus also built one of the great doubles partnerships in tennis history, including six Wimbledon women’s doubles titles together.
So when Williams accepted a wild card into the singles draw, it immediately became one of the biggest stories of the tournament.
That’s the power of Serena.
Even after nearly four years without a singles match, even at 44, even with no real evidence that she could contend at a Grand Slam again, her presence changed the feel of the draw.
Unfortunately for Williams, she did not get the storybook result Tuesday, but this was never going to be judged like an ordinary first-round loss.
Not really.
Yes, Williams is out of the singles draw after losing to a woman less than half her age. But the fact that she even took the court is a story in and of itself.
Now comes the obvious question.
Was this just a Wimbledon one-off, or was it the first step toward one more run in New York?
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The U.S. Open main draw begins Aug. 30, and if Williams wants another singles swing this summer, Flushing Meadows would be the obvious place to do it. That’s where she played her last singles match before this comeback. That’s where American tennis fans believed they said goodbye to her in 2022.
Maybe they did.
Maybe they didn’t.
Either way, Serena Williams taking the court at a Grand Slam tournament is good for tennis, particularly in the United States.
And if Tuesday was any indication, plenty of people would show up to watch her try it again.
