Serena Williams’ tennis comeback is full of unknowns. That doesn’t make it any less seismic

PARIS — It was largely expected. There is no confirmed singles appearance. And still Serena Williams returning to tennis remains nothing short of seismic.

The comeback by Williams, 44, one of the biggest stars in sports history, will reverberate way beyond tennis, the sport she dominated before “evolving away” in the summer of 2022.

There will be basic curiosity about how she will fare as she plays doubles with Canada’s rising teenager Victoria Mboko at Queen’s, the prestigious grass tournament in west London which starts June 8. Women’s tennis — especially singles — has changed hugely since Williams retired, and should she take to the court solo again, where her game fits in the WTA Tour landscape will be intriguing.

Fans hoping that she could win a 24th Grand Slam singles title will surely be disappointed, but even being competitive would add a fascinating dynamic to the WTA Tour. Just Williams’ status as a potential opponent for the stars of today, like Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Świątek and Coco Gauff, would make the draws she plays in — if she gets a wild card — even more of an event.

The comeback will also come in stages. Queen’s is not the be-all and end-all, with Wimbledon starting June 30 and the U.S. Open to come this August. Williams’ presence at Wimbledon, which she won seven times, or the U.S. Open, which she more or less owned for a couple of decades, will be tantalizing to organizers, who will be able to see how her time at Queen’s is received and how she plays.

Since late last year when the whispers of a return began, Williams’ potential comeback has reverberated around the tennis landscape every step of the way, and she has embraced the excitement that has come with it. From the initial “Omg yall I’m NOT coming back. This wildfire is crazy,” reaction in December to her paving the way for a possible return by joining the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s doping whereabouts pool, to the training clips and teasers posted online in recent months, Williams has fully leaned in to her hold over tennis even four years removed from competition.

Mboko, a 19-year-old Canadian ranked No. 9, spoke in a news conference last week of how much of a role model Williams was to her growing up.

“Me and Serena have stayed in touch, which is really, really nice, because you know, I really look up to her. I mean, the fact that she even knows me is very, it’s very exciting,” Mboko said.

Mboko’s tale of inspiration is hardly unusual, so much so that it would be harder to find players on the WTA Tour who weren’t inspired by Williams in some way. As the similarly legendary Martina Navratilova put it in a WTA news release issued Monday: “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.”

In a news conference last week, Gauff, the 2025 French Open champion, said “one of my biggest regrets was not being able to play her.” When Diana Shnaider, the world No. 23, was asked about Williams in a news conference after reaching the French Open quarterfinals, a grin spread across her face.

There’s a feeling that the sport’s queen is returning — even if the full contours of her comeback are yet to be defined. Williams was tennis’ reference point for so long, winning her first Grand Slam title as a 17-year-old in 1999, and her last while pregnant at age 35. She reached four more finals after giving birth, and in her last event, the 2022 U.S. Open, she won two matches in front of frenzied crowds the tournament, and the sport in general, had never seen before or since.

A return to New York is tantalizing, but it is Wimbledon where there might be a slight sense of unfinished business. Williams’ last match there was a three-set, first-round defeat in 2022 to Harmony Tan, who was ranked No. 115. The year before that,  she left the court in tears after slipping and injuring her leg in her first-round match against Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

Even in a sport with new heroes, no one can come close to Williams’ star power. She hasn’t even played a match yet, and she is already one of the sporting stories of the year.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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