Serena Williams Suffers Injury

Just as Serena Williams was embarking on her return to tennis, she suffered a disappointing injury that forced her to change her plans.

After losing to Australian player Maya Joint in the first round of Wimbledon last Tuesday, Williams’ agent Jill Smoller released a statement Wednesday saying she had “tweaked her right knee at the end of the first set” of the first-round match.

The injury explains why the 13-time Wimbledon champion did not make herself available to media following her loss, which otherwise is not allowed and would result in a fine.

“She left site that night unaided and is doing everything she can to be ready for her doubles match later in the week,” Smoller said, referencing Williams’ plans to play doubles with her sister Venus Williams.

Serena acknowledged the injury on Instagram, saying she was doing “everything I can do be ready for doubles.”

However, despite Wimbledon giving her plenty of time to recover in time for the doubles match, Serena announced just before the match was set to start that she was “heartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles,” saying she “did everything I could to be ready, but unfortunately my knee just isn’t ready to compete.”

She shared video of herself limping with her right knee and leg wrapped as well as a photo of four large syringes filled with what she says is fluid her medical team drained from her knee following her match against Joint.

“Yikes!” she wrote. “The good news is my knee shouldn’t swell or collect that much fluid again. The bad news is that, as hard as I tried, I just wasn’t able to get it ready for doubles.”

The injury comes amid the 44-year-old’s return to professional tennis after nearly four years away. She played doubles with Canadian up-and-comer Victoria Mboko at the Queen’s Club Championships in London in June, winning their first match, but the team was forced to withdraw when Mboko suffered a brutal knee injury while playing singles against Karolina Pliskova. Mboko, 19, said she will miss the remainder of grass season as she recovers.

Serena’s injury doesn’t appear to be discouraging her from her comeback journey. “All I can say is stay tuned to a city near you,” she teased in her Instagram post, hinting that she’s likely preparing to stay on tour following Wimbledon.

Her withdrawal came as Polymarket traders were placing bets on whether she and Venus, 46, would win a doubles match at Wimbledon. The odds were at their highest at 60% on June 20, then fell to around 50% in the days ahead of Serena’s singles match.

Following the news of Serena’s injury, odds dipped to 40%. Clearly, the power duo did not end up winning a match as Serena’s injury forced them to withdraw before even stepping on grass together.

When Serena stopped playing tennis in 2022, she said she was “evolving away” from the sport rather than retiring.

“Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution,” she said in a 2022 Vogue essay. “I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

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