Serena Williams Draws Unheralded Harmony Tan for Wimbledon Return

Serena Williams will open her Wimbledon comeback against Harmony Tan, a 24-year-old from France ranked 113th in the world, after the draw was held at the All England Club on Friday. Tan has a 2-6 record in Grand Slam matches and will be making her debut at the grass-court event.

Williams' placement was the most closely watched part of the draw. It will be her first singles appearance at any tournament since she injured her right leg and had to stop playing during the first set of her opening match on Centre Court a year earlier.

Her long absence has dropped the former world No. 1 outside the WTA's top 1,200 this week, meaning she could have landed anywhere in the bracket against any first-round opponent. She returned to the tour only this week, playing two doubles matches at a tuneup tournament in England, and received a wild card into Wimbledon. Although the 40-year-old American's record would justify a seeding, the All England Club now follows the rankings strictly when seeding players.

Williams has won seven Wimbledon titles as part of her 23 Grand Slam singles championships, a record for the professional era. If she beats Tan, her next opponent could be 32nd-seeded Sara Sorribes Tormo, who in 19 previous major appearances has never advanced beyond the second round at Wimbledon or the third round at any Grand Slam. A third-round meeting could pit Williams against sixth-seeded Karolina Pliskova, last year's Wimbledon runner-up to Ash Barty. Pliskova also beat Williams in the semifinals of the 2016 U.S. Open on the way to that tournament's final.

Barty retired in March at 25 and so will not defend her title when play starts Monday. That raises the question of who will play the opening match on Centre Court on Tuesday, a slot traditionally given to the previous year's champion. Top seed Iga Swiatek, who arrives on a 35-match winning streak after winning the French Open, and Simona Halep, the 2019 champion who beat Williams in that final, appear the likeliest candidates. Halep missed the chance to open in 2020, when the tournament was canceled because of the pandemic, and in 2021, when injury kept her out.

The seedings project women's quarterfinals of Swiatek vs. Jessica Pegula, Pliskova vs. Paula Badosa, Anett Kontaveit vs. Maria Sakkari, and Ons Jabeur vs. Danielle Collins.

On the men's side, defending champion Novak Djokovic will open play on Centre Court on Monday against 75th-ranked Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea. Djokovic won last year's final over Matteo Berrettini for a third straight Wimbledon title and sixth overall. Although his ranking has slipped to No. 3, he is the top seed because No. 1 Daniil Medvedev and No. 2 Alexander Zverev are absent. Medvedev, a Russian, is affected by the All England Club's ban on players from Russia and Belarus over the war in Ukraine, while Zverev is recovering from torn ligaments in his right foot suffered in his French Open semifinal against Rafael Nadal. Nadal went on to take his 14th title in Paris and a men's-record 22nd major.

Possible men's quarterfinals are Djokovic vs. Carlos Alcaraz, Casper Ruud vs. Hubert Hurkacz, Nadal vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Berrettini. Among other first-round matchups, Andy Murray, who won two of his three major titles at Wimbledon, faces James Duckworth. Three-time major champion Stan Wawrinka meets 10th-seeded Jannik Sinner, and Nick Kyrgios plays British wild card Paul Jubb.