Wimbledon draw: Serena Williams to learn her first-round opponent in a comeback at age 44

LONDON (AP) — Serena Williams will find out who she’s facing in the first round at Wimbledon — for her first singles match in nearly four years, and at age 44 — when the draw is held Friday.

The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion accepted a wild-card entry to the grass-court Grand Slam, where she’ll also compete in doubles with her older sister Venus, who turned 46 last week.

It's all part of a tennis comeback that started with two doubles warmup matches but kicked into high gear Sunday when All England Club announced Serena would play singles.

Because she has no ranking, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion could potentially face a highly ranked player such as defending champion Iga Swiatek or No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.

Williams hasn't played a singles match since a third-round loss to Ajla Tomljanovic at the 2022 U.S. Open. At the time, she said she didn’t want to use the word “retiring” and instead declared she was “evolving” away from tennis. Her second daughter was born in 2023.

Williams' most-recent appearance at Wimbledon was in 2022 when she lost in the opening round to then-115th-ranked Harmony Tan.

No. 1 Jannik Sinner, the defending singles champion, is the top-seeded men's player. Sabalenka is the women’s top seed. Wimbledon seedings follow the ATP and WTA rankings.

Novak Djokovic, a seven-time champion at the All England Club, is the No. 7 seed. Two-time champion Carlos Alcaraz, who lost to Sinner in the 2025 final, will miss this year’s tournament because of a wrist injury.

Wimbledon starts on Monday.

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Novak Djokovic or Serbia attends a practice session ahead of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Jannik Sinner of Italy smiles during a training session at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, ahead of the Wimbledon Championships in London, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Serena Williams of the United States holds a ball during a practice session ahead of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Serena Williams of the United States arrives at a training session at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, ahead of the Wimbledon Championships in London, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Serena Williams of the United States smiles after a training session at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, ahead of the Wimbledon Championships in London, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

TURIN, Italy--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 26, 2026--

Roboverse Reply, the Reply Group company specializing in robotics and automation, won the 1 st Place in the “Reconnaissance” category and a special prize for “Best Team Effort” at the European Land Robot Trial (ELROB) 2026 in Thun, Switzerland. Teaming up with ELP, a specialist for technical equipment for defusing service, the company demonstrated outstanding performance alongside a field of international participants from June 15 to 19, proving that its autonomous solutions operate reliably under real-world conditions.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260626012237/en/

ELROB is Europe’s most demanding and established showcase for robotics and unmanned systems, where leading experts from around the world compete with their latest developments. Teams tackle challenges such as reconnaissance, explosive ordnance detection – meaning the search for booby traps and unexploded ordnance – as well as rescue operations. In modern security context, the integration of autonomous unmanned systems for operations in high-risk environments is gaining relevance.

Building on its success at ELROB 2024, the technological foundation of the solution was once again the proven Roboverse Reply platform, which has been consistently refined to deliver a major leap forward at this year’s competition. While at the last ELROB two years ago the focus was on a primarily remote-controlled solution, the current system uses features based on embodied AI to assist the operator during the mission. The system enables semi-autonomous reconnaissance in unknown environments, automatically detecting and reporting mines, ammunition, booby traps, and drones. Whenever human intervention is required, a VR-based telemanipulation solution provides intuitive remote control.

Filippo Rizzante, CTO of Reply, comments: “ELROB 2026 impressively demonstrates how our robotics solutions are increasingly evolving from pure teleoperation to intelligent assistance systems for critical missions. We are bringing greater autonomy, improved environmental awareness, and robust communication architectures to systems that must function reliably under real-world conditions. This allows us to support emergency responders in critical scenarios with even greater precision and safety.”

Roboverse Reply

Roboverse Reply supports companies in implementing challenging automation projects. As specialists in robotics, 3D technologies and agentic AI, we provide our customers with comprehensive support – from strategy to productive operation. We automate inspection, material flow and routine tasks and orchestrate heterogeneous robot fleets to ensure smooth overall operation. Digital twins create transparency, allow for pre-simulated what-if scenarios and form the basis for AI-supported process optimisation. In this way, we minimise investment risks, increase operational agility and help our partners to scale robotics in a sustainable and future-proof manner. www.reply.com/roboverse-reply/en

Roboverse Reply won 1st Place in the “Reconnaissance” category and a special prize for “Best Team Effort” at the European Land Robot Trial 2026, proving that its autonomous solutions operate reliably under real-world conditions.