A Grand Slam-winning coach has delivered a scathing verdict on Serena Williams\u2019 return to Wimbledon and said the American legend is \u201cnot a serious tennis player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams<\/a> made her comeback earlier this month and competed in doubles at the grass-court WTA 500 events at Queen\u2019s Club and in Berlin.<\/p>\n The 44-year-old, who has not played a singles match since the 2022 US Open, was given a main draw singles wildcard for Wimbledon.<\/p>\n The 23-time major singles champion will face world No 87 Maya Joint on Centre Court in the opening round at the All England Club on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Calvin Betton \u2014 who has coached Henry Patten and Harri Heliovaara to Grand Slam doubles titles \u2014 criticised Wimbledon\u2019s decision to give Williams a wildcard while speaking on the Tennis Unfiltered podcast.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat if one of the tournaments now says we would love to have Roger Federer playing and are willing to pay him millions? What if another tournament does the same with Rafael Nadal? It could get a bit silly,\u201d said Betton.<\/p>\n \u201cIf she was coming back and saying, \u2018I\u2019m having a run at this, my intention is to get back to the top of the rankings and I want to see how well I can do\u2019, then I would be much more sympathetic to it and I would even back it.<\/p>\n Exclusive: \u2018Serena Williams has nothing to prove at Wimbledon \u2013 but she only came back to win\u2019, says her ex-coach<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Mats Wilander predicts when Serena Williams\u2019 comeback will end amid Wimbledon concern<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cBut we\u2019re giving a wildcard to someone who\u2019s not seriously trying to compete at tennis anymore and instead it\u2019s purely for promotional reasons.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is my biggest problem with it. We keep hearing that she wants to come back and win, but she doesn\u2019t want to win enough to stay around.<\/p>\n \u201cI suspect this return will just be for Wimbledon, the US Open and a couple of the Masters events, that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s where I have a problem because this is not a serious tennis professional and we\u2019re giving them wildcards into the Wimbledon draw.\u201d<\/p>\n Betton, who was speaking before the schedule for Tuesday was confirmed, had some strong words about the prospect of Williams\u2019 match being picked for Centre Court.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they need to put her on Court Two or something, I don\u2019t think you can put her on Centre, there\u2019s just too many big names. She\u2019s not a serious tennis player, she\u2019s a retired tennis player,\u201d said Betton.<\/p>\n \u201cIf so you might have to bump someone like Elena Rybakina off to Court Two, a former winner and the world number two.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think you can put someone on Centre Court who hasn\u2019t played a singles tennis match in four years and is 44 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be a disgrace. It would be a disgrace if they do. That tournament can\u2019t be taken seriously if that happens.<\/p>\n \u201cShe probably will play on Centre Court purely for a safety thing, but I don\u2019t think she should be and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s reasonable to the other players.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Wimbledon withdrawals and retirements: 22 stars out as Jack Draper withdraws and 3 players retire<\/a> The post Serena Williams Wimbledon decision branded a \u2018disgrace\u2019 by Grand Slam-winning coach<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Grand Slam-winning coach has delivered a scathing verdict on Serena Williams\u2019 return to Wimbledon and said the American legend is \u201cnot a serious tennis player.\u201d Williams made her comeback earlier this month and competed in doubles at the grass-court WTA 500 events at Queen\u2019s Club and in Berlin. The 44-year-old, who has not played […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wimbledon News<\/h2>\n
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