Category: Tennis

Serena Williams lost in her first singles match in 364 days as 115th-ranked Frenchwoman Harmony Tan outlasted her 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 (7) in the Wimbledon first round in Williams’ longest match in a decade — 3 hours, 10 minutes.

Williams, a 40-year-old with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, did not say definitively in a press conference afterward whether she plans to continue playing competitive tennis.

Asked if it was likely her last singles match, she said, “That’s a question I can’t answer. Who knows? Who knows where I’ll pop up.”

Asked if she’s OK if this is her last memory at Wimbledon, she said, “Obviously not. You know me. Definitely not.”

Asked if there’s any part of her that wants to play the U.S. Open in two months, she said, “That being the first place I’ve won a Grand Slam [in 1999], is something that’s always super special. … There’s definitely lots of motivation to get better and to play at home.”

Williams followed a rusty first set with a more Serena-like second set, which included a marathon 30-point second game.

She squandered a third-set break of serve but managed to force the 10-point super tiebreak, where she won the first four points, then lost the next four points. Tan went up a mini break at 8-6 in the tiebreak, then served it out.

It was Williams’ first three-hour match since her 2012 French Open first-round loss to another Frenchwoman, Virginie Razzano (which was 3:03). Those are her lone two defeats in completed first-round matches in her Grand Slam career.

Before the tournament, Williams said she was largely motivated to take a wild card into Wimbledon by what happened last year at the All England Club. Last June 29, she tore a hamstring in a first-round match and withdrew, leaving her future in tennis in the air.

“It was always something since the match ended that was always on my mind,” she said Saturday. “So it was a tremendous amount of motivation for that.”

Also Tuesday, …

Serena Williams will begin her Wimbledon comeback by facing Harmony Tan, a 24-year-old from France who is ranked 113th and owns a 2-6 career record in Grand Slam matches. The placement of Williams in the women’s bracket was the most anticipated aspect of Friday’s draw at the All England Club. She is making her first appearance in singles at any tournament since she hurt her right leg and stopped playing during the first set of her first-round match at Centre Court a year ago. Because of her lack of activity over the past 12 months, Williams — who has been No. 1 in the rankings — is outside the WTA’s top 1,200 this week and so could have ended up anywhere in the field and against any opponent in the first round. She only returned to the tour this week by playing two doubles matches at a tune up event in England. While the 40-year-old American’s track record would merit a seeding, the All England Club now adheres strictly to the rankings in determining how it seeds players. Williams has won seven Wimbledon championships, part of her total of 23 Grand Slam singles titles, a record for the professional era. Tan, meanwhile, will be making her debut at the grass-court tournament. If Williams gets past Tan, next up could be a match against Sara Sorribes Tormo, who is seeded 32nd but has never been past the second round at the All England Club or the third round at any major in 19 past appearances. The third round potentially would put Williams against a tougher test: No. 6-seeded Karolina Pliskova, who was the runner-up to Ash Barty last year at Wimbledon and also reached the final of the 2016 U.S. Open — beating Williams in the semifinals there. Barty retired at age 25 in March and so is not defending her title when play begins on Monday. That also leaves open the question of which woman will have the honor of playing the first match at Centre Court on Tuesday, a …