Serena Williams races to recover for Wimbledon doubles with Venus

Serena Williams was racing to recover from a right-knee injury on Wednesday as Wimbledon prepared for her doubles return with Venus Williams, a reunion that carried both the weight of history and the uncertainty of a body under strain. Serena’s singles comeback had already ended in a three-set loss to Maya Joint, and the question now was whether the 44-year-old could answer again when the sisters opened their doubles campaign.

The Wimbledon wild card, announced on June 16, put Serena and Venus back in the same draw for the first time since the 2022 US Open. Their record together gives the matchup its force: 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, six of them at Wimbledon, where their wins came in 2000, 2002, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2016. Those first two Wimbledon crowns also came as wild cards, a symmetry that gives this latest return an added edge. In an era when women’s doubles has become increasingly competitive and specialized, the Williams sisters still own the second-most major doubles titles by any women’s team in the Open Era, behind Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver’s 20.

The concern centered on Serena’s knee. Jill Smoller said Serena tweaked it late in the first set against Joint and left the site that night unaided, while Wimbledon and WTA medical teams recognized the issue and excused her from post-match media duties. Serena’s singles loss mattered less for the draw than for the state of her body, because the doubles appearance had become the real headline of the week, a chance to extend a partnership that has defined one of the sport’s most enduring sibling acts. Serena has seven Wimbledon singles titles and Venus five, and together they also won Olympic doubles gold at the 2012 London Games at the All England Club.

The opening test is set against Camila Osorio and Solana Sierra, two unseeded South American players who will face a pair of champions carrying far more legacy than recent match play. Serena’s warm-up results have been brief but revealing: on June 9 at Queen’s Club, she won a doubles match with 19-year-old Victoria Mboko, her first professional match win in four years, before Mboko’s knee injury ended that partnership and ruled her out of Wimbledon. Serena also had a doubles run with Karolina Muchova in Berlin, but that too ended quickly. By the time the sisters step on court, the central issue will not be memory or myth, but whether Serena’s knee lets a reunion built on legacy become a real match again.