LONDON — With her 41st birthday just months
away and without a Grand Slam title since 2017,
Serena Williams faces searching
questions over her future after a painful first-round Wimbledon exit.
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The American was back on Centre Court on Tuesday
after a year away from singles tennis but it was a miserable return to the
scene of some of her greatest triumphs.
The 23-time major winner was cheered as she entered
the court and supported throughout by a crowd desperate to see her recapture
former glories against unseeded
Harmony Tan of France.
But she looked a pale shadow of her former self,
making 54 unforced errors in an uncharacteristically sloppy display that ended
with a tame forehand dumped into the net.
Despite her lack of form and fitness, Serena, who
lost 7–5, 1–6, 7–6 (10/7), looked to have the match in her grasp at various
points.
She served for victory when 5–4 up in the decider
and even in the tie-break raced into a 4–0 lead before her game fell apart.
Putting a brave face on her defeat, the American
said it was “definitely better than last year”, when an ankle injury forced a
tearful exit in her first-round match against
Aliaksandra Sasnovich.
The 40-year-old only returned to tennis last week,
teaming up with Ons Jabeur in the doubles at Eastbourne.
Asked if she might have played her final Wimbledon,
she said she was unsure.
Uncertain future
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Who knows? Who knows where I’ll pop up?”
Questioned as to whether she would be happy if the
defeat by 115th-ranked Tan was her final memory of Wimbledon, she said:
“Obviously not. You know me. Definitely not.
“But today I gave all I could do. Maybe tomorrow I
could have given more. Maybe a week ago I could have given more. But today was
what I could do.”
The former world number one, handed a wildcard to
compete at the All England Club, first won Wimbledon way back in 2002.
But despite her bitter disappointment she sounded
motivated to play on, even though she is nearly twice as old as world number
one
Iga Swiatek
“It definitely makes me want to hit the practice
courts because, you know, when you’re playing not bad and you’re so close,” she
said.
The US Open, which starts in August, is firmly in
her sights.
Williams’s win there in 1999 was her first singles
Grand Slam triumph, launching her stellar career in the majors — which has
featured periods of near-total dominance.
“When you’re at home, the
US Open, that being the
first place I’ve won a Grand Slam, is something that’s always super special,”
said Williams, who has won at Flushing Meadows six times.
“Your first time is always special. There’s
definitely lots of motivation to get better and to play at home.”
Williams’s place in the pantheon of all-time greats
is already assured but she remains agonizingly one singles title short of
Margaret Court’s all-time Grand Slam record of 24.
The American, who has also won multiple major
doubles titles with her sister Venus, last won a Grand Slam title at the
Australian Open in 2017, giving birth later that year to her daughter, Olympia.
Since then she has been in four Grand Slam finals,
including two at Wimbledon and two at the US Open, but has come up short each
time.
Williams, who has won 73 singles titles in her
career overall, has plummeted to 1,204th in the world after her year out of the
game.
It must look a long way back to the top for a once-dominant
player as she considers her future in the game.
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