Serena Williams Announces Wimbledon Comeback After 12-Month Absence

Serena Williams hasn’t played since last year’s Wimbledon and is now ranked 1208th in the world, but she announced Tuesday she will return to the All-England Lawn Tennis Club this year after a 12-month absence.

“It’s a date. 2022. See you there,” she announced on Instagram.

Wimbledon begins June 27.

Williams, 40, was not on the original Wimbledon entry list and the seven-time champion will have to get a wildcard, which shouldn’t be an issue.

In April, Williams posted a video with Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to her Instagram story saying that they were discussing her comeback.

“We’ve been talking about my comeback,” said Williams, who owns 23 Grand Slam singles titles, one shy of Margaret Court’s all-time record. “He’s been hyping me up and getting me ready for Wimbledon.”

When Rodgers asked, “What about U.S. Open?” Williams responded, “Wimbledon’s before the U.S. Open, I gotta play Wimbledon first.”

Serena retired from her first-round match at Wimbledon last year in a flood of tears after slipping several times on the wet grass and aggravating a hamstring injury.

She later withdrew on the eve of the U.S. Open last summer due to a torn hamstring, and hasn’t played since.

Meantime, her longtime coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, announced recently he would work full-time with former world No. 1 Simona Halep. The Frenchman had been Williams’s head coach since 2012, and she had won 10 of her 23 majors with him.

“After Serena decided to take a break, I confessed to my loved ones that I feel like I’m done with coaching,” he said recently

“I knew that one of my strengths was that I had a lot of enthusiasm for my work. Without this enthusiasm, I can’t be a good coach. I felt like I had lost it.”

Now he and Williams will both be at Wimbledon, but not working together.