Britain’s Princess of Wales, Catherine, received a standing ovation as she arrived at the Wimbledon Championships here on Sunday for a rare public appearance since her cancer diagnosis and abdominal surgery earlier this year.
The senior royal, a tennis player and enthusiast was accompanied by her nine-year-old daughter Princess Charlotte and sister Pippa Matthews as she took her seat in the Royal Box to watch the men’s tennis singles final clash between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
In her role as Patron of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club since 2016, she presented the coveted Wimbledon trophy to Alcaraz, the winner of this year's Grand Slam title and Djokovic.
“Great to be back at Wimbledon! There's nothing quite like The Championships,” her official Kensington Palace account posted on X with images of the Princess of Wales meeting players.
Princess Kate, 42, arrived less than an hour before the final was due to begin on Sunday afternoon and met players, including Britain’s Emma Raducanu, according to the PTI report.
She smiled broadly, waving to the crowd and was seen speaking to her daughter intermittently during the match. As expected, a number of other stars were also at the Wimbledon final and in the Royal Box alongside the royals, including actors Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Zendaya, Jamie Dornan and his wife Amelia Warner and Benedict Cumberbatch.
It marks only the second official public appearance since the princess revealed she was undergoing preventive chemotherapy following a cancer diagnosis.
Last month, she attended King Charles III’s annual birthday parade, referred to as Trooping the Colour, where she joined her father-in-law, husband Prince William and their three children – Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – on the Buckingham Palace balcony for the customary photograph.
It was her first official royal engagement since abdominal surgery earlier in the year and her social media revelation of a diagnosis of an undisclosed form of cancer in March.
Ahead of the appearance in early June, she issued a statement to stress that she plans to take things slow to give her body time to heal.
She said at the time: “As anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are good days and bad days,” adding that her treatment is ongoing and will be for a few more months.
"I am learning how to be patient, especially with uncertainty. Taking each day as it comes, listening to my body, and allowing myself to take this much-needed time to heal."
While she was in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, Prince William was in Berlin to watch Spain beat England in the finals of Euro 2024 in Germany.
In his role as President of the Football Association (FA), the 42-year-old Prince of Wales had been cheering the England football team, known as the Three Lions, through the tournament in which they made it to their first Euros final on foreign soil.
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