Bad news from Serena Williams.
The world no.1 had to retire from Bastad for an elbow injury to raise a couple of question marks.
Serena was struggling already the day before, she wanted to give it a shot, but eventually she decided it was too dangerous to retire before playing Koukalova in the second round.
Serena: I haven’t had time to heal
The world no.1 commented “I was having some pain in my right elbow. I felt it a little bit in my match yesterday, and then it got better, but then this morning I really couldn’t hit serves, and if I’m not able to hit serves that could definitely be a problem. So I talked to my coach about it and we were like, ‘Let’s see what the doctor says, and see what everyone else says, and go from there.’ The main thing is that we don’t want it to get worse, we obviously want it to heal.
Unfortunately I haven’t had time to heal. I’ve been going, going, going, playing tournaments I love, and coming here has been such a great joy, but unfortunately it’s not going to heal if I keep playing.”
Serena’s choice was probably right as a shot at winning the Gran Slam this year he she grabs the US Open title.