Tennis-Serena says she needed time to heal after rough 2021

25.06.2022 - 17:59 msn.com

LONDON (Reuters) - Serena Williams needed to heal physically and mentally during a difficult year away from tennis due to injuries and had doubts about her comeback at one stage, the former world number one said on Saturday as she prepares to return to Wimbledon.

Williams, 40, limped out of her first-round match last year at the grasscourt Grand Slam -- where she has claimed seven of her 23 majors -- following a leg injury. "I don't know.

I didn't retire. I needed to heal physically, mentally. Yeah, I had no plans, to be honest. I just didn't know when I would come back.

I didn't know how I would come back," Williams told reporters. The American has slid down to 1,204 in the rankings and needed a wildcard from Wimbledon organisers the All England Lawn Tennis Club to compete in the main draw of the women's singles.

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LONDON: Stefanos Tsitsipas said Nick Kyrgios has an “evil side” after a stormy clash at Wimbledon on Saturday in which the victorious Australian called for his Greek opponent to be kicked out of the tournament. The bad-tempered match overshadowed the rest of the action on day six, which included the end of Iga Swiatek’s 37-match winning streak and a routine victory for Rafael Nadal. The mercurial Kyrgios prevailed 6-7 (2/7), 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (9/7) in an incident-packed third-round match on Court One. The contest descended into mayhem when a frustrated Tsitsipas hit the ball into the crowd after losing the second set. Kyrgios told the umpire that Tsitsipas should be kicked out of Wimbledon, recalling the incident at the US Open in 2020 when Novak Djokovic was defaulted from the tournament after hitting a line judge with a ball. “You can’t hit a ball into the crowd and hit someone and not get defaulted,” said the 27-year-old, who received an audible obscenity warning during the match. He kept up his verbal jousting with the umpire, clearly unsettling Tsitsipas, who was warned over the incident and later handed a point penalty for hitting the ball in frustration toward the back of the court. The bad feeling bubbled up again in post-match press conferences, with fourth seed Tsitsipas saying it felt like a “circus.”

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