Serena Williams to partner Karolina Muchova at Berlin Open

Serena Williams will partner Czech Karolina Muchova at next week’s Berlin Open as she continues her comeback.

The 44-year-old, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, made her return to tennis earlier this week at Queen’s after almost four years away from the sport, partnering Victoria Mboko in the women’s doubles.

The pair made a winning start as they upset third seeds Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez in straight sets, but had to withdraw from their quarter-final after Mboko suffered a nasty fall in her singles tie.

Muchova, 29, is a two-time Wimbledon quarter-finalist in the women’s singles and sits 10th in the WTA rankings.

“I’m pretty excited about it. It doesn’t happen every day that such an amazing athlete, not only in tennis but overall in sport, asks you to play tennis with her. I hope it’s going to be fun,” Muchova said at a press conference in Berlin on Saturday.

Mboko, who retired from her match against Karolina Pliskova, has been ruled out of the remainder of the grass-court season, including Wimbledon, with a medial collateral ligament injury in her left knee.

“Unfortunately, my fall on Wednesday caused an injury to the MCL in my left knee,” Mboko said. “I had been so looking forward to playing [Wimbledon] this year.”

On partnering Williams, she added: “I learned so much from you and I’m sorry our tournament came to an end prematurely, but I hope we can play together again soon and finish what we started.”