LONDON (AP) \u2014 Serena Williams tweaked her right knee at Wimbledon during her first singles match in nearly four years but still hopes to play doubles with sister Venus, her agent said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The 44-year-old Williams did not ask for medical treatment during a 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 loss to 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia in the first round on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion who won seven of her titles at Wimbledon, did not meet with media after the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cSerena tweaked her right knee at the end of the first set and was therefore excused from her media obligations by the Wimbledon and WTA medical teams,\u201d said Jill Smoller, Williams\u2019 agent. \u201cShe left site that night unaided and is doing everything she can to be ready for her doubles match later this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams confirmed the injury on Instagram and added, \u201cIt felt so good to be back on the grass (at) Wimbledon. I\u2019m incredibly thankful for the wild card \u2014 and even more grateful my daughters got to see that it\u2019s never too late to chase something you love.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations to Maya Joint on a great match, and thank you to everyone who showed up and showed me so much love. That feeling will never get old,\u201d Williams added.<\/p>\n
Serena received wild card invitations from Wimbledon organizers to play both singles and doubles with Venus.<\/p>\n
Serena has said that having her two daughters off from school inspired her comeback and it marked the first time that her youngest daughter, Adira, who is almost three, saw her play singles. Adira sat next to her 8-year-old sister, Olympia in the front row of Serena\u2019s players\u2019 box.<\/p>\n
Alexis Ohanian, Williams\u2019 husband, wrote on social media: \u201cOur little family is so proud of you @serenawilliams \u2014 even though it wasn\u2019t the outcome you wanted, you\u2019re an inspiration. We love you\u201d He added that the kids \u201care also happy they got to stay up a bit past their bedtime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka also paid tribute to Serena and her sister on social media: \u201cI really wonder if Serena and Venus know how much they mean to us,\u201d Osaka posted.<\/p>\n
Then after winning her second-round match Wednesday, Osaka discussed watching Serena play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe montages that they had before the match started made me really emotional because I feel like I\u2019ve watched her growing up,\u201d Osaka said. \u201cNow I feel like I\u2019m grown up and I get the privilege of watching her again. So it was really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fellow American Tommy Paul watched, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty impressive at her age,\u201d Paul said. \u201cShe was striking the ball pretty well, returning pretty well. I thought she was going to go after it a little bit more. … I think it would have helped her a lot to have maybe a match of singles before coming out to Wimbledon. But she\u2019s Serena. She can do whatever she wants.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON (AP) \u2014 Serena Williams tweaked her right knee at Wimbledon during her first singles match in nearly four years but still hopes to play doubles with sister Venus, her agent said Wednesday. The 44-year-old Williams did not ask for medical treatment during a 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 loss to 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia … Continue reading Serena Williams tweaked her knee during Wimbledon return at age 44 but still aims to play doubles<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-03 12:14:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1519634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1519635,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519634\/revisions\/1519635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1519634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1519634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1519634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}