Serena cuts season short

– American great Serena Williams (above) was left out of the China Open tennis draw yesterday as she appeared to call time on her season following her meltdown at the US Open.

Williams’ name, along with that of her sister Venus, did not appear on a list of 64 players ahead of the start of the tournament in Beijing, one of the women’s tour’s mandatory events.

It comes less than three weeks after the tempestuous US Open final, where Williams, 37, accused the umpire of lying and sexism in an angry rant during her 6-2, 6-4 defeat to Japan’s Naomi Osaka.

Reports from the United States said Williams’ season is now over, which would make it the fourth year in a row she has curtailed her playing commitments – although in 2017 she took time off to have a baby.

In 2016 she called it quits after the US Open citing a shoulder injury, and in 2015 she took a break after narrowly failing to win all four majors in the same year, following a shattering defeat in New York to Italy’s Roberta Vinci.

The biggest event left on the 2018 calendar is next month’s elite, eight-player WTA Finals in Singapore. Williams is currently 11th on the Race to Singapore rankings.

Williams, who won her first Grand Slam title in New York in 1999, captured her 23rd while pregnant at last year’s Australian Open, but she has since stuttered on the brink of Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24. – AFP