Published on : 29/06/2021 – 21:32
Serena Williams had to throw in the towel on Tuesday in her Wimbledon first round match against Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich. Injured in a thigh and unable to continue the match, the American left the court in tears.
Seven times titled at Wimbledon, still a finalist in 2019 in the last edition of the grass tournament, Serena Williams stops in the first round this year. The world n ° 8, seeded n ° 6, entered the running on Tuesday, June 29 against Aliaksandra Sasnovich, 100e world player.
The meeting ended prematurely and in tears for Serena Williams. At the heart of the first set, the American fell in the fourth game. Hit in the left ankle, she left the court limping to receive treatment in the locker room. The champion, who also wore a big bandage around her right thigh, tried to resume the match at 3-3. But after only three games, she had to bring herself to give up. The match lasted only 34 minutes.
Serena Williams, 40 in September, is still aiming for a 24e Grand Slam title to equal the record set by Margaret Court. Until Tuesday, she had only given up once in a Grand Slam meeting. It was already at Wimbledon, in 1998, in the round of 16 against the Spaniard Arantxa Sanchez.
Faced with the distress of the player, in tears at the time of slipping away, the audience addressed a standing ovation to her. The last major success of the American dates back to the 2017 Australian Open. She then retired to give birth to her first child, in September of the same year.
Since returning to the circuit in 2018, Serena Williams has lost twice in the Wimbledon final (2018 and 2019) and twice in the US Open final (2018 and 2019).
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