Williams Sisters Awarded Wimbledon Doubles Wild Card

Organizers of Wimbledon announced Tuesday that Serena and Venus Williams have been awarded a doubles wild card for the tournament, which begins in less than two weeks.

The invitation allows the sisters to return to the All England Club, where they have collected a combined total of 21 titles in singles and doubles competition.

Even with a combined age of 90, Serena and Venus remain a respected pairing at Wimbledon.

They have won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles together, six of which came on the grass courts of Wimbledon. Their first two Wimbledon doubles titles, earned in 2000 and 2002, both came as wild cards.

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Their records at the venue include seven singles titles for Serena and five for Venus. Additionally, Serena won a mixed doubles title at Wimbledon with Max Mirnyi in 1998.

At the 2012 London Olympics, Serena captured a singles gold medal while the sisters claimed a doubles gold medal. Altogether, those titles and medals total 21 trophies.

With their six Wimbledon doubles titles as a pair, the Williams sisters share the record for most women’s doubles trophies at the championship with Suzanne Lenglen and Elizabeth Ryan, who won their titles from 1919 to 1925.

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The Williams sisters most recently competed together in doubles at the 2022 U.S. Open. They were defeated in their opening match, the first time they had played doubles together in four and a half years.

Serena recently returned to professional competition after nearly four years away.

In her first event since 2022, she teamed with Victoria Mboko at Queen’s Club in London to win a doubles match, but the duo withdrew afterward when Mboko injured her knee during a singles match.

The 44-year-old Serena was scheduled to play doubles with Karolina Muchova at the Berlin Open later Tuesday. Venus, who turns 46 on Wednesday, has been competing sporadically.

Serena has not ruled out returning to singles play as well. One of the eight women’s singles wild card spots for Wimbledon was left “to be announced.”

Among those who received women’s singles wild cards were recent French Open finalist Maja Chwalinska and six British players: Harriet Dart, Alicia Dudeney, Hannah Klugman, Mika Stojsavljevic, Katie Swan, and Mimi Xu.

Men’s singles wild cards were granted to Stan Wawrinka, Grigor Dimitrov, and four players from Britain: Jacob Fearnley, Arthur Fery, Jack Pinnington Jones, and Toby Samuel. Two additional wild cards remain unfilled.

Wawrinka, a three-time Grand Slam winner, reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals twice and has announced plans to retire at the end of the year.

Dimitrov led Jannik Sinner by two sets in the fourth round last year before retiring early in the third set due to a pectoral injury. Dimitrov is currently ranked No. 169.

In men’s doubles, organizers awarded a wild card to the team of Alexander Bublik and Nick Kyrgios. Kyrgios was a singles finalist at Wimbledon in 2022.

Matteo Berrettini, a Wimbledon finalist in 2021 and quarterfinalist at the French Open, was not among the players listed for wild card selection.

Although ranked No. 49, Berrettini was outside the top 100 when Wimbledon’s entry list closed. He could still gain direct entry into the main draw depending on tournament withdrawals.

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