A decade after Serena Williams won her seventh Wimbledon singles title, the Americans return to the competition adds a compelling new dimension to the women’s draw.
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion returns after a four-year absence, after the 44-year-old was granted the eighth and final singles wildcard by Wimbledon organisers.
Singles will be a different proposition for Williams, but it would be no surprise if she becomes the oldest woman to win a singles match at Wimbledon since Martina Navratilova, aged 47, in 2004.
Since Williams beat Germany’s Angelique Kerber to win the 2016 title, there have been eight first-time Wimbledon champions, such is the depth at the top of the women’s game.
World number one Aryna Sabalenka will hope to climb from the deep, dark hole she fell into after collapsing to defeat in the French Open quarter-finals and win her first Wimbledon title.
Poland’s Iga Swiatek will try to become the first player since Williams in 2016 to win back-to-back Wimbledon titles.
Fresh from becoming the youngest French Open champion for 34 years, Russian 19-year-old Mirra Andreeva will bring her audacious game to the pristine Wimbledon lawns.
Then there is American Coco Gauff’s latest attempt to finally crack the grasscourt puzzle, 2022 champion Elena Rybakina’s understated and often unplayable power game.
Also the possibility that a resurgent Emma Raducanu can ride a wave of home support to a first British women’s title since 1977.
In that decade, the likes of Naomi Osaka, Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff, Rybakina and Ash Barty have won multiple Grand Slam titles but no one has dominated like Williams in her pomp.
The last six Grand Slams have been won by six different players and Belarusian powerhouse Sabalenka has been ranked number one since October 2024.
