43-year-old Venus Williams will make her 24th appearance in the singles draw of the Wimbledon this season. The same was confirmed after she received a wild-card entry on Wednesday. Williams has won the women's singles at the grass-court major five times in her career and was a finalist most recently at the 2017 edition of the tournament. Even though she will compete in women's singles at the All England club, it would raise eyebrows if she goes deeper into the competition, being ranked 697th in the world.
Williams did get the better of 48th-ranked Camila Giorgi 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (6) on Monday at the Birmingham Classic but it happened to be her first win over a player in the top 50 in close to four years. Overall, Williams has a total of seven Grand Slam titles to her credit. She would next be seen competing against Jelena Ostapenko at the Wimbledon warm-up event. Her younger sister Serena is a seven-time champion in the singles' category at this competition but succumbed to a defeat in the first round at the 2022 edition following which she decided to retire from professional tennis.
Other than Venus Williams, Ukranian player Elina Svitolina and British players Heather Watson and Katie Boulter have also been handed wild cards for the women's draw of Wimbledon 2023. As far as the men's wild cards are concerned, David Goffin, the Belgian tennis star who reached the quarterfinals in 2019 and 2022, was given a wild card.
Elena Rybakina, the Russia born Kazakhstani tennis player, happens to be the reigning Wimbledon women's single champions who had defeated Ons Jabeur in the final 3–6, 6–2, 6–2 last year to win her first grand slam. Last month, she entered the top 5 of the world rankings for the first time, and she currently sits at the number 3 position in the rankings.
Wimbledon 2023 is all set to commence on July 3.