Serena Williams, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, will make her return to competitive action after an absence of almost four years in the women's doubles at Queen's Club later this month.

She has been granted a wildcard for the tournament which begins on 8 June and, will play alongside Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko.

The 44-year-old American "evolved away" from tennis in 2022 after winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles in her 27-year career.

Rumours of a return began last year when her name appeared on the list of players registered for the drug-testing pool.

Williams denied she was returning, but the whispers got louder when her name was included on the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) reinstatements list in February.

On Monday, she shared a video on social media of her walking on to a tennis court containing the caption: "Guess everybody heard the news", alongside a post which said: "Good news travels fast."

Williams said: "Queen's Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter.

"Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career and I'm excited to be back competing on one of the sport's most iconic stages."

Williams will take the court in London at the WTA 500 event 196 weeks after her final appearance at the 2022 US Open.

The highest-earning female athlete of all-time, Williams drew huge crowds throughout her career and is a figure who has truly transcended her sport.

Equipped with arguably the best serve ever seen in the women's game, Williams was known for her big groundstrokes, strong return of serve and superb movement.

After retiring, Williams largely kept away from the sport and gave birth to her second daughter in 2023.

Last year, she told the Today Show in the US about losing 31lb (14kg) over the previous eight months.

She said she had to look at her extra weight as "an opponent". Despite "training five hours a day" and "running, walking, biking, stair climbing", she told the show she had no other choice but to "try something different".

Williams would not say which weight loss drug she was taking, although she had just become a spokesperson for Ro, a company which sells GLP-1 brands like Wegovy and Zepbound (known as Mounjaro in the UK) through its weight-loss programme. Her husband, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, is also an investor.

Williams said she was seeing the benefit of her hard work at the gym, was training for a half-marathon and "running farther than I ever had".