Serena Williams’ return to tennis keyed a record start to Wimbledon for ESPN.
Williams’ first round Wimbledon singles loss to Maya Joint averaged 1.8 million viewers on ESPN Tuesday afternoon, helping the network to an average of 937,000 for the full day of coverage — up 55% from last year and the network’s most-watched opening round Wimbledon telecast on record. The full opening round, which included Monday’s play, was also the most-watched on record with an average of 734,000.
Tuesday’s match, which peaked with 2.1 million in the 4 PM ET quarter-hour, soared past Williams’ previous appearance at Wimbledon four years ago — a first round loss to Harmony Tan that averaged 842,000 and peaked with 1.2 million. The full day telecast that year averaged 528,000.
Officially, viewership was not far off of last year’s Wimbledon women’s final, a rare “double bagel” of Amanda Anisimova by Iga Swiatek that averaged 1.9 million. (Note that match took place before Nielsen shifted to its current “Big Data + Panel” methodology, which has generally raised sports viewership since going into effect last September. All things being equal, it is unlikely the margin would be as close.)
The last time Williams played in any Grand Slam prior to this year was at the U.S. Open in 2022, where her first round victory against Danka Kovinic averaged 2.7 million. That U.S. Open was widely understood to be the last tournament of her career, and as such, her matches generated unusually strong audiences — including 3.6 million for her second round win over Anett Kontaveit and 4.8 million for her third-round loss to Ajla Tomljanovic, the latter ranking as the largest audience for a tennis match on ESPN. All of those matches aired in primetime.
Williams is set to play again Saturday in a doubles match alongside her sister Venus. The last time the Williams sisters played doubles together, during the aforementioned 2022 U.S. Open, the match averaged 2.2 million.
Venus, it should be noted, never retired from tennis and has been competing on-and-off for several years. With her older sister still playing and increasing smoke surrounding a comeback, it cannot be said that Williams’ return was entirely unexpected — though it was certainly not something ESPN could have reasonably counted on entering the summer.
