Tennis legend Serena Williams to compete for first

Serena Williams is returning to aggressive tennis after all.

Months after insisting on social media, “Omg yall I’m NOT coming back,” the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion announced Monday that she’ll play professionally for the first time in nearly 4 years at the HSBC Championships at the Queen’s Club in London.

Williams, 44, has been given a wild-card entry into the doubles draw of the WTA 500 event, which begins June 8.

“Queen’s Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter,” Williams said in a assertion launched by the match. “Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career, and I’m excited to be back competing on one of the sport’s most iconic stages.”

Williams teased the announcement earlier Monday by posting a video on social media that featured her telephone‘s notifications going off constantly while she seemingly was practicing on the court.

“Good news travels fast,” Williams wrote on the post.

Tournament director Laura Robson said during TNT Sports UK’s coverage of the French Open on Monday that Williams’ enjoying associate might be Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko, who is ranked No. 9 in WTA singles. Williams has received 14 Grand Slam titles and three Olympic gold medals in doubles with her sister Venus Williams as her associate.

It just isn’t clear whether or not Williams will take part in any other occasions. Wimbledon, a Grand Slam event Williams received seven occasions in singles, begins June 29 in London.

Williams’ last skilled match was a loss to Australian Ajla Tomljanovic in the third spherical of the U.S. Open on Sept. 2, 2002. She registered as retired with the International Tennis Integrity Agency the next day.

Last December, however, Williams reentered the company’s drug-testing pool. According to the ITIA web site, retired gamers “may not return to sanctioned events unless they have made themselves available for out-of-competition testing for at least six months prior to the event in question.”

The transfer led to a lot hypothesis about a attainable Williams return, main to her social media post denying any such intentions.

Martina Navratilova, the 18-time Grand Slam champion who is the oldest lady to win a tour-level singles match — she was 47 when she received a Wimbledon match in 2004 — expressed pleasure for Williams’ return.

“Serena brought the game to another level and it is incredible for the sport that she’s pushing the boundaries and coming back,” Navratilova said in a assertion launched by the WTA. “To many of the younger players, they never had the opportunity to play her; some may have never watched her on television, so this will be a new and exciting experience.”