Serena Williams returns to grass at Queen's Club HSBC Championships
The 23-time Grand Slam champion comes out of a four-year retirement to play doubles at the WTA 500 in London, 6-14 June 2026.
Grass-court tennis in west London has its biggest story in decades. The HSBC Championships at Queen's Club, the WTA 500 event running 6-14 June 2026, will host the competitive return of Serena Williams after four years away from the sport.
The 44-year-old, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, will not chase the singles draw. Instead she enters the doubles alongside rising Canadian Victoria Mboko, a pairing that gives the tournament a marquee draw beyond its singles seeds. "Queen's Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter," Williams said. "Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career."
The venue itself carries weight. The WTA only returned to Queen's Club in 2025 after a 52-year absence — the women's tour had not played there since 1973. The relaunched event is quickly building stature, with the total purse rising to roughly $1.915 million for 2026. The singles champion takes home $294,445 and 500 ranking points; the doubles winners share $97,680.
The singles field is led by world No. 2 Elena Rybakina as top seed, with Amanda Anisimova seeded sixth and Mboko ninth. Britain's Emma Raducanu, Olympic and Grand Slam contenders Belinda Bencic and Zheng Qinwen, and Marta Kostyuk round out a deep grass-court entry list. Qualifying runs 6-7 June, with the finals set for Sunday 14 June.
For the events industry, it is a reminder of how a single star booking reshapes a property: a 500-level tournament reborn after half a century becomes a global talking point on the strength of one comeback. Expect demand on tickets, hospitality and broadcast windows to spike accordingly.
Full schedule, seedings and prize-money breakdown are available via the WTA's official preview.
