Serena Williams hit a 120mph serve and celebrated her comeback to tennis with a 7-6 (2) 6-2 first-round doubles victory alongside Victoria Mboko after the pair beat Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe at the HSBC Championships in London.
Williams, at 44 a quarter-century older than 19-year-old Mboko, had not played competitively in 1,376 days, since her farewell at the 2022 US Open.
She chose Mboko, the 2025 WTA Newcomer of the Year, in part, she explained on Sunday, because the Canadian teen reminded Williams of herself.
Her return, after a “why not?” moment, was also a chance for Williams, she explained, to play in front of Olympia and Adira, the daughters she shares with Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.
Both daughters were in attendance at the Andy Murray Arena, where the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion seemed to do something to appease the tennis gods after rain affected much of Monday’s action.
Weather did cause some brief delays earlier in the day, when British number one Emma Raducanu opened her grass-court season with a win over Russian qualifier Anna Blinkova.
But the skies were decidedly sunnier when Williams, Mboko and their opponents walked out at around a quarter to six to a standing ovation and a roar from the crowd.
They cheered again when Williams secured two of the pair’s points en route to a first-game victory, immediately broke serve in the next and, on what remained a windy west London evening, reached a highest 113mph in her first service game, also claimed by the North American duo.
Williams and Mboko lost their serve for the first time in the seventh game of the set but a big double backhand, which brought out a big grin from the American, made it 5-4 before Williams produced her quickest serve of the set – 120mph – two games later.
The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion and Mboko, who lifted her first WTA title as a Montreal wild card last year, continued to settle into their partnership as they secured the set in the tiebreak.
They were a set and a break up after the third game of the second set – which also featured the first video review challenge of the match, requested by Melichar-Martinez, but with an inconclusive result.
Mboko secured their second break point as the pair began to close in on victory and Williams then produced two emphatic aces to bring up two match points.
And though she said before this contest that she had won enough in her lifetime and was not focused on the outcome here, Williams nevertheless looked pleased to secure a first comeback victory after the pair closed it out.
