The grass is greener for Serena
NEW DIET HAS HER FIGHTING FIT
SeReNA WIllIAMS joked yesterday that she has been living on a diet of grass to get in shape for a clay court season that has started for her in highly satisfactory fashion.
looking in good shape and highly mobile, she eased past Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson 6-4, 6-2 to make the second round of the Italian open in Rome.
Serena could meet Jo Konta in the third round, but first is one of those awkward matches against her sister Venus. for the second time in eight days, Konta played American Alison Riske, and beat her by the exact same scoreline, 6-4, 6-1.
Williams had not played since March 22 in Miami and this is her only preparatory tournament for the french open. early last week she attended the Met Gala in New york.
While the description of her recent eating habits was lighthearted, she is evidently serious about giving herself the best chance of making a run at the french open and Wimbledon, with no sign of a knee injury that has been troubling her.
‘ When you’re sedentary it becomes hard to manage your body, so basically you have to just eat grass. That’s what I did, it was a nightmare,’ said Williams. ‘It’s been awful. I’ve been working as hard as I could, keeping up my cardio as much as I could with a knee injury.’
While Cam Norrie ground his way to a satisfying victory, Kyle edmund and Dan evans lost their first-round matches from winning positions.
British No 1 edmund slumped to a fifth successive defeat on what is meant to be a good surface for him, subsiding 4-6, 6- 4, 6- 2 to Spain’s fernando Verdasco from a set and 4-1 up.
once again, edmund played well enough to a certain point, but his confidence has descended to such a level that he lost 10 straight games from when the winning post came into sight. It seems he is unlikely to play again before Roland Garros.
Were he to lose early there it is likely he would not be seeded at Wimbledon.
evans did well to come through qualifying to make the main draw and led by a break at 3-2 in the decider against Casper Ruud. The Norwegian’s natural clay court prowess saw him home 7-5, 0-6, 6-3 as evans faded.
Norrie also emerged from the preliminaries, and scored his third win in three days when he overcame Australian John Millman 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. He now faces tough Croatian Borna Coric, the No 13 seed, while Konta’s win earned her a shot at 2018 Paris finalist Sloane Stephens.