BY-DEVANSHI SRIVASTAVA
Serena Williams withdrew from next week’s US OPEN after the American revealed on Wednesday that her torn hamstring had not fully recovered in time for the year’s last Grand Slam tournament.
With a leg injury, Williams, a six-time champion at Flushing Meadows, was forced to withdraw from her first-round match at Wimbledon in tears. Williams has had an injury-plagued season.
She sustained the hamstring injury during her first-round loss at Wimbledon in June when she was forced to retire against Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich. She had been a seven-time champion at the time.
Tennis legend Serena Williams won her maiden major title at Flushing Meadows in 1999, beating Swiss star Martina Hingis to become the first African-American woman to win a Grand Slam title since Althea Gibson in 1958 – and the first in the Open Era – since Gibson’s achievement.
The following year, Williams reached the final for the second time in four years but was defeated by Japanese rising star Naomi Osaka, who is now a three-time Grand Slam champion, in a contentious conclusion to the women’s event.
Wimbledon and the US Open are the four Grand Slam finals that Williams has reached since giving birth to her daughter Olympia in 2018. In her quest to join the ranks of Australian legend Margaret Court, Williams has reached two Wimbledon finals and two US Open finals, finishing runner-up in each of them.
The 39-year-old has been chosen out of the Olympics in Tokyo as well as the Cincinnati Masters, which serves as a tune-up tournament for the US Open. He has been on the search for an elusive 24th major.
She won her first Major title in the 1999 US Open while still a teenager, marking the beginning of her ascent to the dominance of the women’s game.
Williams, whose world ranking has dropped to number 22 as a result of the birth of her baby, skipped the US Open for the first time in 2017.
The fact that she reached the finals in both 2018 and 2019 only increased her dissatisfaction as she tries to match Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles victories is a source of more anguish.
Her words: “New York is one of the most exciting cities in the world, and it’s one of my favourite locations to play — I’ll miss seeing the fans, but I’ll be cheering everyone on from a distance.”
Tennis star Venus Williams has become the latest major name to withdraw from the event, after the withdrawal of reigning men’s champion Rafael Nadal from the competition due to injury. The main draw of the United States Open will begin on August 30, 2021, in New York City.
About The Author
