Serena Williams has withdrawn from the doubles with her sister Venus after failing to recover from a knee injury suffered in her first-round singles defeat by Maya Joint.
‘I’m heartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles. Coming back to compete again has been a gift, and the opportunity to play alongside Venus once more meant the world to me. I did everything I could but unfortunately my knee just isn’t ready to compete,’ she said in a post on Instagram.
‘I’m especially grateful to tournament director, Jamie Baker, and the entire tournament team for giving me every opportunity to recover. Thank you to the fans for your incredible support and for making this comeback so meaningful…All I can say is stay tuned to a city near you…’
The post was accompanied by a video of the 23-time Grand Slam champion limping along with her right leg heavily bandaged, with her daughter Olympia playing with her walking stick.
There were also pictures of Williams receiving medical treatment, and Serena’s post added: ‘The photo of the syringes is the fluid they drained from my knee after my singles match – yikes! The good news is that my knee shouldn’t swell or collect that much fluid again. The bad news is that, as hard as I tried, I wasn’t able to be ready for doubles.’
The 44-year-old is playing here at Wimbledon for the first time in four years and was down to play both singles and doubles.
But when the seven-time singles champion failed to appear for her post-match press conference after the Joint defeat, a saga began which has run on throughout this week.
After an initially furious online reaction over Williams’ ‘snubbing’ of the press, her agent released a statement saying she had missed the mandatory media availability because of a knee injury.
