Serena Williams has withdrawn from the doubles with her sister Venus after failing to recover from a knee injury suffered in her first-round singles defeat by Maya Joint.

The 44-year-old is playing here at Wimbledon for the first time in four years and was down to play both singles and doubles. But when the seven-time singles champion failed to appear for her post-match press conference after the Joint defeat, a saga began which has run on throughout this week.

After an initially furious online reaction over Williams ‘snubbing’ of the press, her agent released a statement saying she had missed her media because of a knee injury.

When the Williams sisters did not appear on the order of play for Friday – the last day of the women’s doubles first round – there was more confusion: had she pulled out?

In fact, the All England Club schedulers had pushed them to the late slot on Saturday, giving Serena as much time as possible to be fit. But on Saturday afternoon it was announced that she and Venus would be withdrawing.

Serena Williams withdrew from Wimbledon in the eleventh hour on Saturday afternoon

In a statement on Instagram, Serena said: ‘I’m heartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles. Coming back to compete again has been a gift, and the opportunity to play alongside Venus Williams once more meant the world to me. I did everything I could but unfortunately my knee just isn’t ready to compete.

‘I’m especially grateful to tournament director, Jamie Baker, and the entire tournament team for giving me every opportunity to recover. Thank you to the fans for your incredible support and for making this comeback so meaningful… All I can say is stay tuned to a city near you…

‘The photo of the syringes is the fluid they drained from my knee after my singles match – yikes! The good news is that my knee shouldn’t swell or collect that much fluid again. The bad news is that, as hard as I tried, I wasn’t able to be ready for doubles.’

That means Serena’s grass court comeback has consisted of only three matches: a first-round win in the doubles at Queen’s with Victoria Mboko, after which they had to pull out because the 19-year-old Canadian suffered an MCL knee injury, a defeat in Berlin alongside Karolina Muchova, and that 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 loss to Joint on Centre Court.

It is doubtful she will be content with that for her big return, and so it now seems almost certain – unless this is a truly serious injury – that Williams will target a blockbuster return to the US Open in August.