Serena Williams – live: Wimbledon 2026 latest scores, results and order of play as comeback with Venus Williams still ‘to be arranged’

With only two doubles matches under her belt, Serena Williams stepped onto Center Court for her first singles match in four years, facing the 20-year-old Australian Maya Joint.

After a difficult first set for Williams, she showed brilliant fight in the second set to save match point and force a decider, but ran out of steam as the world No 87 won 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3.

Williams was excused from her post-match media obligations after it was revealed she “tweaked her knee”.

Williams was able to leave the grounds “unaided”, and is doing “everything she can to be ready” for her doubles match with Venus, her agent Jill Smoller said.

Wimbledon tournament director Jamie Baker confirmed the All England Club were prepared to give Serena Williams “as much time” as she needed to return.

The first round of the women’s doubles were scheduled to be completed by today, but Baker described the schedule as a “guideline”.

“We are giving her as much time. Obviously we want her to play, if she possibly can. In terms of the days, it is a guideline.

“That is what we’re hoping to do to try and get the tournament finished. There are sometimes exceptional circumstance, whether that’s weather, injuries or actually sometimes conflicts of players playing in two of three events.

“It doesn’t happen that often but occasionally you do get the odd match that carries over and we wouldn’t do that if we felt that it was putting the competition in any kind of danger.”

The 23-year-old wildcard Fery, who carries earplugs in his tennis bag and didn’t notice the arrival of the Princess of Wales to his win over Otto Virtanen, will play Zizou Bergs on Saturday as the only British player left in the men’s or women’s singles

Serena Williams made her long-awaited return to tennis for the first time since 2022 when she played doubles with Victoria Mboko at Queen’s in London.

The pair won their first-round match against third seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Erin Routliffe, but injury for Mboko prevented a second.

The Canadian teenager slipped on the grass during her singles match the following day, suffering a left knee injury that forced her to withdraw from Wimbledon.

The 21-year-old Eala is the first player from the Philippines to reach the third round of a grand slam and will play reigning champion Iga Swiatek this afternoon

The Williams sisters are drawn to play the unseeded South American pair Camila Osorio and Solana Sierra in the first round. Osorio, from Colombia, and Sierra, from Argentina, will be playing as a duo for the first time.

Sierra reached the last-16 of singles last season, and gave Coco Gauff a scare in round two on Wednesday.

The Williams sisters last played doubles together at the 2022 US Open. Venus Williams, who is 46, plays sporadically but still sometimes accepts wildcards into grand slams.

Together, Serena and Venus have won six Wimbledon doubles titles, a record they share with Suzanne Lenglen and Elizabeth Ryan, and their last title came in 2016.

With a combined age of 90, the Williams sisters are scheduled to play from at least 4:30pm BST (UK time) on Saturday 4 July. But their match is still described as “to be arranged”, and a court has not been assigned.

British wildcard Arthur Fery bids to continue his Wimbledon run while champion Iga Swiatek faces Alexandra Eala on Centre Court on day six of the Championships.

Fery, 23, had opted to remain on Court 18 for the first third round grand slam clash of his career against Belgium’s Zizou Bergs. Fery is the last British player left standing in the singles draws.

On Centre Court, Swiatek will play rising star Eala, from the Philippines, before last year’s runner-up Amanda Anisimova plays former Australian Open champion Madison Keys in an all-American clash.

Alexander Zverev, Taylor Fritz and Alex De Minaur are the top men’s seeds in action, while two players looking to spark a resurgence, in Matteo Berrettini and Grigor Dimitrov, also meet on Centre.

Serena Williams and Venus Williams are included in the order of play, but their doubles match has not yet been assigned a court, with further details still “to be arranged”.

Serena Williams lost a thrilling encounter with 20-year-old Maya Joint 6-3 6-7 6-3 late on Tuesday night on Centre Court, putting up a valiant fight before fading in the third set, in her first singles match in four years.

The nearly two-and-a-half hour match, which ended at 10pm local time, brought an early end to a much-anticipated singles comeback at the grand slam where she won seven of her 23 major titles.

She did not take part in the obligatory post-match press conference and it later emerged that this was due to her picking up a knee issue during the match, which required lengthy treatment from the physio.