Williams’ return natural but scary

LONDON — Serena Williams has been saying it over and over and over: Wimbledon is only her fourth tournament since returning to the tourafter having a baby.

“Everytime I go out there ... take a giant step forward,” she said. “Keep taking giant steps, butkeep improving.”

Williams played a total of seven matches in 2018 before arriving at the All England Club, and she’ll be playing her seventh match in the past two weeks when she meets 11thseeded Angelique Kerber of Germany Saturday in the Wimbledonfinal.

Certainly didn’t take long for the 36-year-old American to get her game in gear and close in on what would be an eighth Wimbledon title, one short of Martina Navratilova’s record, and 24th Grand Slam trophy in all, equaling Margaret Court’s all-time mark.It was only 10½ months ago that Williams had far moreserious concerns.

After giving birth to her daughter, Olympia, Sept. 1, Williams dealt with health complications that included blood clots and led to what she saidwere multiple operations.

“Almost didn’t make it ... ,” Williams said Thursday after hersemifinal victory.

She has been wearing compression leggings during her matches as a precaution and saysshe remains nervous.

“I mean, even this week, I had a pain in my leg, and I went to the worst-case scenario: ‘Oh, my God, I have a [pulmonary embolism] in my leg,’” Williams said. “I didn’t know I would have such, kind of, traumatic thoughts. Especiallynow that I have a daughter,I want to be around as long asI can to support her.”

The tennis? That’s come quite naturally, not surprisingly. She was off the tour for more than a year after her Australian Open title in January 2017 — won while she was pregnant, she later revealed. Williams first came back by playing doubles with her older sister, Venus, for the U.S. Fed Cup team in February. Then came her singles return, at Indiana Wells in March, when she won her first two matches before losing to her sibling. Next was a first-roundloss at Miami.

“Ihonestly felt I would have done better in some of the earlier tournaments. That was the hardest part — accepting thatI didn’t,” Williams said.