Serena puts ‘Out of office’ on for return
Serena Williams joked — or was it a joke? — that she activated the “Out of office” message on her email account so anyone trying to reach her about her many non-tennis activities while she’s at Wimbledon would know why no response arrived immediately.
Great as Williams is with a racket in her hand, successful as she’s been, her sport has never been the only activity that interested her or occupied her time. All of which might very well be a factor in why, just shy of 41, she is still in the game, returning to singles action for the first time in a year, and was smiling and chuckling occasionally while taking questions Saturday in the All England Club’s main interview room during a pretournament news conference.
“A little surreal,” the 23-time Grand Slam champion said, “sitting here again.”
She hasn’t competed in singles since she injured — “ripped” was the verb the American used — her right hamstring during the opening set of her first-round match at Centre Court in 2021. That disappointing exit provided “a tremendous amount of motivation,” she said.
“I didn’t retire. I just needed to heal physically, mentally. And I had no plans, to be honest. I just didn’t know when I would come back. I didn’t know how I would come back,” Williams said. “Obviously, Wimbledon is such a great place to be, and it just kind of worked out.”
No one else knew until recently when, or whether, Williams would play again, a notinsignificant matter, considering what a transcendent figure she is. She wouldn’t say whether this will be her last appearance at the All England Club, offering simply: “I can only tell you that I’m here. Who knows where I’ll pop up next?”
The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion made a brief appearance this week in doubles at a grass-court event in Eastbourne, but Tuesday’s outing against Harmony Tan will be a much bigger deal. Williams said she decided to play Wimbledon “some time ago,” saying she made up her mind before the French Open, which began on May 22.
Williams, a former No. 1 now ranked outside the WTA’s top 1,200 and allowed into the Wimbledon field via a wild-card invitation, practiced on Centre Court on Friday. She arrived for her session just as current No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who is on a 35match winning streak, wrapped up hers.
“I was pretty overwhelmed. … I didn’t know how to react perfectly. I wanted to meet her. I saw that she had so many people around her. I don’t know her team. It was pretty weird,” Swiatek said, likening the feeling to when she was younger and “too shy to say ‘Hi’ to anybody.”
“Just seeing her around is great, because she’s such a legend,” Swiatek continued. “There’s nobody that has done so much in tennis.”
Williams has done plenty outside of tennis, too.
That includes forays into business with investment firm Serena Ventures and entertainment via past acting roles and by joining her older sister, Venus — a seven-time major singles champion not entered in Wimbledon this year — as executive producers for “King Richard,” the film about their father that was nominated for five Academy Awards.
“A part of me feels like that is a little bit more of my life now than tournaments,” she said.