Serena Williams has come under fire for failing to show up for her post-match press conference after her first-round exit from Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
Nearly four years after she played her last Grand Slam match at the 2022 US Open, the tennis great made her singles return on Centre Court at the All England Club after she was handed a wildcard by tournament organisers.<\/p>\n
Her comeback had dominated headlines in the lead-up to the grass-court major and Wimbledon\u2019s showpiece court was abuzz when she stepped foot on the hallowed turf alongside first-round opponent Maya Joint for the late match on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
The 44-year-old \u2013 who was looking to become the oldest woman to win a singles match at Wimbledon<\/a> since Martina Navratilova in 2004 \u2013 produced a superb comeback as she saved a match point<\/a> in the second-set tie-breaker, but eventually went down 6-3, 6-7 (6-8), 6-3 in a match that lasted nearly two and a half hours.<\/p>\n Williams<\/a> received a standing ovation when she left Centre Court and many expected her to do the traditional post-match press conference, but she didn\u2019t face the press after the match.<\/p>\n Serena Williams Wimbledon decision branded a \u2018disgrace\u2019 by Grand Slam-winning coach<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Serena Williams tipped to continue playing until 2028 by Mats Wilander<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Instead, organisers issued a statement on her behalf and it read: \u201cIt was really great to be back at Wimbledon. I never expected to be here. The atmosphere was amazing. Walking out was amazing. I definitely relished it and missed it and enjoyed the moment more than anything.\u201d<\/p>\n That decision did not go down well with tennis journalists with Simon Cambers, president of the International Tennis Writers Association, suggesting it was a slap in the face of Wimbledon organisers after they gave her a wildcard.<\/p>\n \u201cImpressed at how hard @serenawilliams fought tonight. Not impressed that she refused to do her obligatory media conference. Having been given a wildcard by @Wimbledon, that\u2019s not on,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n Punto de Break\u2019s Jose Moron wrote: \u201cSerena won\u2019t be holding a press conference on her return to tennis after four years.<\/p>\n \u201cSpeaking to journalists might not be the most fun thing in the world, but it\u2019s a good way to reach people and promote this tournament in the midst of a World Cup, given how chaotic it\u2019s all been.<\/p>\n \u201cTennis players must also realise that this is part of their job, too. Tennis is where it is today thanks to the people who watch it, and if nobody spoke and stories weren\u2019t created, nobody would get hooked on it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a real shame that a legend like Serena isn\u2019t speaking today, given the sort of day it\u2019s been.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams\u2019 2026 Wimbledon campaign is not over yet as she will feature in the women\u2019s doubles alongside sister Venus Williams<\/a> and the wildcard pair will face Camila Osorio and Solana Sierra in the first round on Thursday.<\/p>\n The post Wimbledon: Serena Williams\u2019 post-match actions described as \u2018a real shame\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Serena Williams has come under fire for failing to show up for her post-match press conference after her first-round exit from Wimbledon. Nearly four years after she played her last Grand Slam match at the 2022 US Open, the tennis great made her singles return on Centre Court at the All England Club after she […]<\/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-2420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420","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=2420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Serena Williams News<\/h2>\n