Venus Williams, a five-time Wimbledon singles winner, and Elina Svitolina, a semifinalist in 2019, are two of the inaugural Wimbledon wild cards that the event released on Wednesday.
Svitolina skipped the tournament in 2022 because she was pregnant, and Williams missed it because of an injury. Williams, who won the championship in 2000-01, 2005, and 2007-08, will compete in her 24th grass-court Grand Slam main draw match, while Svitolina will don the uniform for her ninth. Svitolina not only advanced to the final four in 2019, when she fell to the eventual champion Simona Halep, but she also did so in 2017.
Williams defeated Camila Giorgi in the first round of the Rothesay Classic in Birmingham this past week, winning in 3 hours and 17 minutes for her first Top 50 victory in four years and her first victory on a grass court since Wimbledon 2021.
Here is the list of the wildcards.
Venus Williams in Birmingham, ranking, and results in 2023
LL At the moment ranked no.697, Venus has a compiled 2-2 match record in 2023. The American is now having a run in Birmingham where she ousted the world no.48 Camila Giorgi 7-65 4-6 7-66.
Venus Williams will compete against the world no.17 Jelena Ostapenko in the 2nd round. Their head to head is 2-0 for Venus Williams.
Venus Williams won 49 titles in her career: 24 on hard courts, 9 on clay courts, 10 on indoor courts, 1 on carpet courts and 5 on grass courts. (See the list of her titles)
Elina Svitolina in 2023
LLWWWLWLWW Now ranked no.73, Svitolina played her last match on the 19th of June when she surrendered to world no.57 Linda Fruhvirtova 6-2 6-0 in the 1st round in Birmingham (draw).
At the moment, during this season Elina owns a 12-8 match record. Svitolina conquered 1 title in Strasbourg.
She is also scheduled to play in Washington (Mubadala Citi DC Open) on the 31st of July and U.S. Open (U.S. Open) on the 28th of August.
Venus Williams and Elina Svitolina fought against each other 4 times. The head to head is 3-1 for Svitolina. Before, the last time they played, Elina Svitolina won 6-4 6-4 in the 2nd round in New York (U.S. Open) in August 2019.
In the following video you can watch the key moments of their match.
