Serena hopes to find form in Rome before Roland Garros
ROME: Serena Williams returns from injury in Rome next week looking to get back to winning ways as she prepares her bid to match Margaret Court’s record of major singles titles at the French Open later this month.
Rome will be Williams’s fourth tournament of the season and the first since being forced to withdraw from the Miami Open in April due to a knee injury. The 37-year-old has completed just seven matches this year.
There are now doubts that the veteran can add to her tally of 23 Grand Slams, something which has so far proved beyond her since returning last year after taking time out following the birth of her first child. Her last Grand Slam singles title was won at the Australian Open in 2017. That moved her one behind Australian Court’s record of 24 major singles titles. Serena made her return to Grand Slam tennis at last year’s French Open, where she reached the fourth round.
She reached the finals of Wimbledon and the US Open. In the quarter-finals of this year’s Australian Open, she suffered a spectacular collapse in a three-sets defeat by Karolina Pliskova.
“I like that I don’t want to go out there and say: ‘I expect to lose because I had a year off. I’ve been playing for 10 months. I’m not supposed to win.’ I don’t have that attitude,” she said.
BERTENS BEATS HALEP TO CLINCH MADRID OPEN MADRID:KIKI Bertens won the biggest title of her career on Saturday, beating Simona Halep 6-4, 6-4 in the Madrid Open final while becoming the first woman ever to win the championship without dropping a set. The win ensured Bertens will move to a career-best fourth in the world rankings on Monday and become the highestranked Dutchwoman in history.