TOPSHOT – Venus (L) and Serena Williams celebrate after beating Lisa Raymond of USA and Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-2, 6-2, in the Women’s Doubles Final during the 2008 Wimbledon Championships at the All England Tennis Club in south-west London, July 5, 2008. AFP PHOTO/GLYN KIRK (Photo by GLYN KIRK / AFP) (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images)
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Venus and Serena Williams are set to play their first-round doubles match at Wimbledon on Saturday on ESPN.
The time of the match has yet to be announced.
Serena, 44, is dealing with a knee problem following her first-round singles loss to Maya Joint on Tuesday, so tournament officials are giving her extra time to rest before playing doubles. The sisters were initially supposed to play Thursday or Friday.
“Serena is a little banged up in the knee, had a little bit of a problem in her match, which is normal when you haven’t played for almost four years,” Andy Roddick said on ESPN.
“The tournament, I think, gave them a little bit of relief here, trying to get that extra day for Serena to be able to play. This is a double thumbs up because Venus gets a [mixed doubles] match in [Friday] before they get out on the doubles court together. This is great news for the world of tennis.”
Serena made her return to competitive tennis for the first time in four years and fell in three sets to Joint. She then skipped her post-match media availability but avoided the $50,000 fine for doing so.
Before the grass court swing, Serena had not played competitive tennis since the 2022 U.S. Open, when she said she was “evolving” away from tennis to focus on raising her two daughters, Olympia and Adira.
Venus, who has still been competing sporadically, is 46.
The Williams sisters have won 14 Grand Slam titles together in doubles, including six at Wimbledon — the first of them in 2000 and the last in 2016. Their first two doubles titles at Wimbledon, in 2000 and 2002, came as wild cards.