Serena Williams returned to professional tennis Tuesday with a win, partnering Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko to reach the doubles quarterfinals at the HSBC Championships at Queen’s Club in London.
Playing her first tour-level match since the 2022 U.S. Open, Williams teamed with the 19-year-old Mboko to defeat third seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe 7-6(2), 6-2 on grass. The result gave Williams a winning start to one of the most watched comebacks in recent tennis history.
The match began with the kind of attention rarely attached to an opening-round doubles contest. Williams, now 44, had not played competitively in nearly four years, and Queen’s Club offered a high-profile stage for her return. The London tournament is back on the WTA calendar after a long absence and has become one of the key grass-court events leading into Wimbledon.
Williams and Mboko were given a difficult first assignment. Melichar-Martinez and Routliffe entered as the No. 3 seeds, bringing major doubles experience and a strong grass-court pedigree. But the wildcard team handled the occasion well, taking the first set in a tiebreak before pulling away in the second.
Williams showed flashes of the power that defined her career, especially on serve, while Mboko gave the pair energy and court coverage from the younger side of the partnership. The pairing is unusual on paper, with a 25-year age gap between them, but it worked well enough to move them into the next round.
The win also gives Williams her first match victory since her emotional run at the 2022 U.S. Open, where she was widely thought to have played the final tournament of her career. Williams never formally closed the door on tennis, but her absence from competition, business work, and family life made a return seem unlikely until her Queen’s Club wildcard was announced.
For the WTA, her comeback is an immediate attention pull. Williams remains one of the most important figures the sport has ever had, with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, 14 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles with Venus Williams, and a career that changed the scale of women’s tennis. Even in doubles, and even without any promise of a full singles return, her presence shifts the focus of the grass season.
The next test will bring another familiar name. Williams and Mboko are set to face Leylah Fernandez and Laura Siegemund in the quarterfinals. Fernandez has her own connection to the Williams family after partnering Venus Williams at the U.S. Open last year.
Williams has not committed to a singles return, and any Wimbledon decision remains open. For now, the comeback is limited to doubles, with another grass-court appearance expected in Berlin. But after Tuesday’s win, the question has changed. It is no longer whether Serena Williams can still compete on a professional court. It is how far this return can go.
