Serena Williams is back.
For how long, it is impossible to say. After a full year away from the sport, even Williams does not appear to know the answer to that one.
But back she is, and the joyous circumstances of her return at Eastbourne, where she partnered Ons Jabeur, the Tunisian world No 3, to a 2-6, 6-3, 13-11 doubles victory over Sara Sorribes Tormo and Marie Bouzkova, stood in marked contrast to the last sighting of her, when she hobbled off Centre Court in tears after suffering a torn hamstring at Wimbledon last summer.
Williams, whose ranking has dipped to 1,208th as a result of her inactivity, has been granted a wildcard for Wimbledon. She has been notably guarded ahead of her comeback, declining to speak to the media following her announcement last week and practising at a local club, away from the public gaze of Devonshire Park. The one thing she could not disguise, as she wiped away the cobwebs with a performance that began hesitantly but steadily grew in authority, was her delight at returning to the cut and thrust of competitive match play.
“It’s so fun to play with Ons,” she enthused in her on-court interview, after she and Jabeur had saved a match point to clinch a desperately close match tiebreak. “I caught some fire behind me, so it was good.”
Back in the interview room, Williams was in more circumspect mood. Asked whether, given a fair wind health-wise, she would play on into next season, the 40-year-old was non-committal.
“I don’t know,” said Williams, who remains one grand slam short of matching Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24. “I can’t answer that. I love tennis and I love playing, or else I wouldn’t be out here, right? But I also love what I do off the court, what I’ve built with Serena Ventures. It’s interesting, so it’s a lot.”
Williams’s last major victory came five years ago at the Australian Open, when she was eight weeks pregnant with her daughter Olympia, and she has lost all four of the grand slam finals she has contested since. She acknowledged that there had been moments over the past year when she wondered – along with the rest of the tennis world – whether she would ever return to the sport.
“Absolutely, for sure, I would be dishonest if I said [there] wasn’t. Now my body feels great – it’s doubles, I’m only playing half the court – but I’ve been doing a lot of training and it definitely feels good.”
No amount of training can fully prepare a player for the tension and mental pressures that accompany match play, and Williams looked understandably edgy as she prepared to serve in the opening game. That feeling was underlined when she briefly lost control of the ball as she prepared to serve in the opening game, forcing her to perform an impromptu pirouette to retrieve it.
It set the tone for an understated start. Williams’s movement was cautious in the early stages, and as she felt her way into the contest the signs of ring rust came thick and fast. Having held serve, the American punctuated the second game with a missed overhead and the third with an untidy volley that sailed over the baseline. With half an hour gone, Sorribes Tormo slotted away a forehand volley to seal the opening set. The Spaniard and her Czech partner, who won a title together on the clay courts of Istanbul two months ago, were not just there to make up the numbers. This would be tough.
But slowly, inexorably, Williams found the touch of old. A break up and serving at 5-3 in the second set, she unleashed a venomous backhand winner to bring up set point. Moments later, a 102mph ace levelled the contest. It was in the tiebreak, though, that Williams came into her own, most notably when a brilliant, lunging forehand volley brought up a first match point. That brought a roar from the crowd and a clench of the fist from the seven-time Wimbledon champion. Briefly, it was just like old times.
Sorribes Tormo and Bouzkova clung on, however, drawing a backhand error from Williams, and when Jabeur netted a mid-court forehand to spurn a second match point, it began to look like the week’s biggest story might end before it had even begun. Match point down at 11-10, Williams and Jabeur were relieved to see a lob go long, and the Tunisian capitalised on the reprieve with a lovely piece of finesse, darting in front of her slack-jawed partner to bring up another match point. This time it went the way of the crowd favourites, Sorribes Tormo punching a volley wide.
Might the partnership continue at Wimbledon? “We’re taking this show on the road,” joked Williams, before quickly adding: “No, a day at a time.” For the time being, that feels about right. Tougher challenges lie ahead. For now, though, Williams is back – and that is all that matters.