LONDON: Serena Williams hit a serve at 193 kilometers per hour and celebrated her comeback to tennis with a 7-6 (2), 6-2 first-round doubles victory with Victoria Mboko after defeating Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe at the HSBC Championships in London, reported PA Media/dpa.
Williams, 44, is 25 years older than Mboko, who is 19. The American star has not played competitively for 1,376 days since her last appearance at the 2022 US Open.
She chose Mboko, the recipient of the 2025 WTA Newcomer of the Year award, in part because the Canadian teenager reminded her of herself, Williams explained on Sunday.
Her comeback, which she said was sparked by the thought of “why not?”, also gave Williams the opportunity to perform in front of Olympia and Adira, her two daughters from her marriage to Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.
Both of his children were present at the Andy Murray Arena, where the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion looked set to bring good luck after rain affected much of Monday’s action.
The weather did cause a slight delay earlier as British number one Emma Raducanu opened her grass court season with a win over Russian qualifier Anna Blinkova.
However, the weather improved when Williams, Mboko and their opponents entered the ring at around 5.45pm and were greeted with thunderous applause from the standing ovation.
The cheers echoed again as Williams helped the pair earn two early points to win the first game before breaking their opponent’s serve in the next. In windy conditions in west London, she recorded the fastest serve of the opening set at 181 kilometres per hour on her first service game, which the North American pair also won.
Williams and Mboko lost serve for the first time in the seventh game of the first set, but a double backhand featuring a big smile from the American helped them lead 5-4 before Williams produced the fastest serve of the set — 193 kilometers per hour — two games later.
The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion and Mboko, who won her first WTA title as a wildcard in Montreal last year, were getting closer as they won the first set in a tie-break .
They led by a set and a break after the third game of the second set, which also saw the first video review challenge of the match requested by Melichar-Martinez, but without a final decision.
Mboko secured the pair’s second break point as they edged closer to victory before Williams hit two convincing service aces to secure two winning points.
Although Williams said before the match that she was not too focused on the result because she had won many titles throughout her career, she clearly looked happy after securing her first victory since returning to action.
— BERNAMA-PA MEDIA/dpa
