By Martyn Herman
LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - A decade after Serena Williams won her seventh Wimbledon singles title, the American trailblazer's return next week adds a compelling new dimension to an already wide-open women's draw.
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 and the possibility that a resurgent Emma Raducanu can ride a wave of home support to a first British women's title since 1977.
But when 44-year-old Serena Williams strides on to the Centre Court she once owned, there will be only one story in town. The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion returns after a four-year absence having resumed a career that appeared over.
Having been granted the eighth and final singles wildcard by Wimbledon organisers, Williams' first competitive singles match since the 2022 U.S. Open will guarantee soaring TV ratings and drive social media into a frenzy.
Williams' comeback was one of the worst-kept secrets in tennis. She re-joined the anti-doping pool last December, has lost around 20lbs thanks to weight-loss drugs and has been putting in the hard yards with coach Rennae Stubbs.
The 120mph serve -- one of the most potent weapons in the history of women's tennis -- was on show in her comeback match in a doubles alongside Victoria Mboko at Queen's Club, as was the easy baseline power.
Singles will be a different proposition, 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.
"Not having played a singles match in years, like a lot of years, and saying, you know what, 'I think my first, dipping my toes back in is going to be at Wimbledon', I would have scheduled seven events," former world number one Andy Roddick said after her wildcard was confirmed.
"Imagine being in Serena's brain, where it's like, 'It's going to be Wimbledon, I'm good enough, I can handle this, no problem.' That's levels of confidence that I didn't have for 12 seconds of my existence in my entire life."
Another fellow American Grand Slam champion Lindsay Davenport said Williams will only have come back if she felt she could make an 'immediate impact'.
"It doesn't get easy as you get older and grass is a tough surface to start on," she told the BBC.
"The ball goes very quick, very low and it's very physical. It's not going to be easy but if anyone could do it, certainly it could be her."
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.
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 while Belarusian powerhouse Sabalenka has been ranked number one since October 2024, she appears vulnerable.
She was two points from a semi-final place in Roland Garros but her game unravelled and she lost the last 10 games.
Her Wimbledon build-up featured another collapse as she lost a deciding set 6-0 to Jessica Pegula in Berlin.
Few players wear their heart on their sleeve quite like Sabalenka and her emotional control will be fully tested at Wimbledon where she will be favourite.
And what if she comes up against Williams?
"If you're Sabalenka, and you play Serena, who hasn't played in four years, she comes out and gets three or four (service) holds... there is no upside if you're Sabalenka, zero."
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
