Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, receives standing ovation at Wimbledon

Britain's Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, 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 will present the coveted Wimbledon trophy to the winner of this year's Grand Slam title.

 

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.

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 preventative chemotherapy following a cancer diagnosis. Last month, she attended King Charles III's annual birthday parade, known 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, she said, adding 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 is on the tennis court in London, Prince William is in Berlin to watch England take on Spain 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 has 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 earlier this week.