Queen's Club, London. Tuesday or Wednesday. Serena Williams — 44 years old, 23 grand slam titles, and three years off the tour — steps back onto a competitive court for the first time since 2022. Her partner?

Victoria Mboko, a 19-year-old Canadian who is already ranked world No 9 in singles. Their opponents are Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe, the third seeds. Nobody quite knows what to expect, and Williams seems perfectly comfortable with that uncertainty. The woman who won more grand slam singles titles than almost anyone in history says winning is no longer the point.

"I don't need to win," she told reporters at Queen's. "I've won more than most people have in their whole lives, so for me it's not important." She is putting no pressure on herself, she insists, and the motivation is strikingly personal: her daughters, eight-year-old Olympia and two-year-old Adira, deserve to see their mother compete. That, she says, is reason enough.

Williams chose Mboko as her doubles partner after watching the teenager win the 2025 Canadian Open in Montreal. What impressed her most was not the title itself, but what came after — Mboko kept winning. "Sometimes you win one and then have a little bit of a low," Williams observed. "She reminded me a lot of myself.

" It is a generous comparison, and one that the young Canadian is unlikely to forget. Whether Wimbledon wildcards, singles matches, or anything beyond Berlin is next remains genuinely open. "Right now, no," Williams said when asked about singles — then paused. "We'll see if I get there.

" That pause may be the most interesting sentence she spoke all week.