Suits her fine
23-time Grand Slam winner believes she is ‘on the right track’
Serena Williams makes a splashy return to Grand Slam tennis with the outfit she wore during a French Open victory over Kristyna Pliskova. Williams said the suit helps with the blood clots she has suffered since giving birth last September.
PARIS — Serena Williams attended the recent royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle rather than play in the Italian Open, an important claycourt tuneup for the French Open. And though Williams isn’t technically a royal, posters advertising the French Open displayed a photo of her with the announcement, “The Queen is Back.”
She is. And more accurately, “The Mother is Back.”
Competing in her first Grand Slam since winning the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant, and in one of few tournaments since delivering her daughter last September, Williams defeated Kristyna Pliskova, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4, in her firstround match at Roland Garros on Tuesday.
“I feel like I’m on the right track,” Williams said. “I have been putting a lot of work in on the court, off the court, on the court, on the court, off the court — that’s kind of been my life. I have been really enjoying it. Hopefully, the results continue to show.”
Pliskova, ranked 70th in the world, said she expected Williams would not play as well as she did — the Czech player outaced Williams — but the 23-time Grand Slam winner proved to be a tough opponent as usual. After the two were tied at 6 in the first set, Williams fell behind 3-0 in the tiebreaker but rallied to win 7-4 and hollered in triumph several times. She lost the first two games of the second set but came back to win six of the next eight to take the match.
“I knew that after Pliskova’s first game of serving,” Williams said, “I said, ‘OK, I have to serve really well today. I need to really be on my game serving-wise.’ ”
Williams had played just two previous WTA tournaments since giving birth to her daughter, Alexis Olympia. She lost in the third round at Indian Wells in March and in the first round at the Miami Open later that month. She backed out of the recent Madrid and Rome tournaments, saying she didn’t think she was ready to play.
In fact, because of postpartum medical issues, she said she oc- casionally wasn’t sure if she was going to make it back in the sport.
“A lot of people have really reached out, because they have so many similar stories, too,’’ she said. “I feel like a lot of people don’t talk about it. They talk about the baby and how happy they are. But it’s a lot that goes into it with the pregnancy and with giving birth and it’s called a miracle for a reason, because it’s a miracle and it’s very difficult sometimes to make it through.”
Williams will play her second-round match against 17thranked Ashleigh Barty.
Williams made her return to the Roland Garros courts in a skintight black catsuit, saying she does so for a couple reasons. “I had a lot of problems with my blood clots, and, God, I don’t know how many I have had in the past 12 months,’’ she said. “So it is definitely a little functionality to it. I have been wearing pants in general a lot when I play so I can keep, you know, the blood circulation going.”
Also, the suit makes her feel like a superhero.
“I feel like a warrior in it, like a warrior princess, queen from Wakanda maybe,” she said.
So yes, the queen is back.