3 years ago
328
Serena Williams added herself to the database of big-name withdrawals from the U.S. Open connected Wednesday, pulling retired of the year’s past Grand Slam tourney due to the fact that of a torn hamstring.
Williams hasn’t competed since injuring her close limb successful the archetypal acceptable of her first-round lucifer astatine Wimbledon successful precocious June.
The American, who turns 40 adjacent month, announced her determination to beryllium retired the U.S. Open via a societal media post. She joins Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal successful sitting retired the contention successful Flushing Meadows, wherever play begins adjacent Monday, raising questions astir what the aboriginal of tennis mightiness look similar without them. The gully for the tourney is Thursday.
This volition beryllium the archetypal large tourney since 1997 without immoderate of Williams, Federer oregon Nadal successful the singles brackets. Williams made her Grand Slam debut astatine the 1998 Australian Open; Federer made his the pursuing year; Nadal successful 2003.
Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, a grounds successful the nonrecreational era. Only 1 subordinate successful tennis past owns more, Margaret Court with 24.
Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic stock the men’s grounds of 20.
“After cautious information and pursuing the proposal of my doctors and aesculapian team, I person decided to retreat from the US Open to let my assemblage to heal wholly from a torn hamstring,” Williams wrote successful Wednesday’s post.
Her enactment ended with: “I’ll spot you soon.”
Williams’ coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, besides enactment up a station connected societal media, saying, “we’ve done everything we could” and adding: “It is heartbreaking, but this is the lone imaginable decision.”
Williams has won six singles championships astatine the U.S. Open, astir precocious successful 2014. In her 5 appearances astatine the hard-court tourney successful New York since then, she has made it to the last doubly — losing to Naomi Osaka successful 2018 and Bianca Andreescu successful 2019 — and the semifinals 3 different times, including past year.
Her best-in-the-game service and almighty groundstrokes person allowed Williams to stay among the rubric contenders astatine the biggest tournaments, particularly connected hard courts and grass.
This season, she was a semifinalist astatine the Australian Open successful February, earlier losing to eventual champion Osaka there. At the French Open, played connected reddish clay, Williams mislaid successful the 4th circular to Elena Rybakina.
At Wimbledon, Williams was serving portion starring 3-1 successful her opening lucifer erstwhile her near footwear seemed to suffer its traction portion she was hitting a forehand and her close limb flexed awkwardly.
She tried to proceed but yet needed to halt playing, lone the 2nd mid-match status of her Grand Slam vocation and archetypal since 1998.
English (US) ·