The All England Club held its breath until Sunday. One wildcard remained — the last slot in the ladies' singles draw — and the whole tennis world already suspected who it was for. When the AELTC finally confirmed Serena Williams as its recipient, a comeback that had been building quietly through doubles courts in Queen's Club and Berlin suddenly became something altogether more seismic. Williams last played singles at the 2022 US Open, where she retired from the sport after a career spanning 23 grand slam singles titles.

She is 44 now. Her sister Venus, her doubles partner at these Championships, is 46. Neither fact has apparently persuaded either of them to stay away. Serena had already accepted a doubles wildcard alongside Venus, but she had been deliberately evasive about singles — answering a direct question in Berlin this week with a cascade of "I don't knows" that, in retrospect, said everything.

Her return to the grass-court circuit had not been without turbulence. A promising doubles win at Queen's Club alongside Victoria Mboko was cut short when Mboko suffered a serious knee injury. A subsequent pairing with Karolína Muchová in Berlin ended in a first-round defeat. Yet Williams declared herself satisfied with her level, and she has spent the rest of the week training on the All England Club's grass courts — hardly the behaviour of a tourist.

Wimbledon itself carries specific weight for her. In 2021, a slippery Centre Court left her with a hamstring injury that ended her run immediately. In 2022, ranked outside the world's top 1,000, she lost in the first round to world No 115 Harmony Tan — a defeat that many believe planted the seed of this very return.