Coronavirus: Serena insists she can 'do it all'
Ex-No. 1 returns to tour with Slam record still on her mind despite facing higher health risks
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Serena Williams in her loss to Wang Qiang at the Australian Open in January. She is pressing ahead with plans to play in the US Open despite a wave of player withdrawals over coronavirus fears. She is also due to feature in the French Open, which starts two weeks after the New York event ends.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
NEW YORK • After her latest long and unexpected break from the sport she once dominated, Serena Williams will return to competition today at a new tournament, the Top Seed Open in Lexington, Kentucky - the first WTA Tour event held in the United States since early March.
What is different about this layoff is that her comeback to tour-level tennis will be part of everyone else's.
Professional players have been on hiatus because the coronavirus pandemic shut down both the men's and women's circuits in early March.
The Top Seed Open will just be the third event since the disruption - the Palermo Open ended yesterday, while the Prague Open is taking place concurrently.
"That's the biggest difference," Williams, who is the only top-10 player in the event's draw and is the biggest name apart for her sister Venus and teenage sensation Coco Gauff, said on Saturday.
"Instead of me being injured, it's kind of like everyone had to take a break and a pause, and it will be really fun and interesting to see how we play.
"I feel like everyone has an opportunity to actually be more fit now, because we spent so much time at home to just kind of work on yourself and your life and your game."
The question is, how does this collective break affect Williams' chances of winning the US Open, which is scheduled to begin on Aug 31?
"I think she has the same chances that she has had since the birth of her daughter (in 2017)," her coach Patrick Mouratoglou said. "She absolutely has the level. It still depends a great deal on her whether she wins a Grand Slam. Covid, for me, has changed absolutely nothing in that department."
Even at this late stage in her career, the Frenchman is adamant Williams can win her 24th Grand Slam singles title and tie Margaret Court's record.
She has come agonisingly close. Since returning to the WTA Tour in 2018 after a difficult childbirth, she has reached four Grand Slam finals - two at Wimbledon and two at the US Open - losing all of them in straight sets.
After winning her first tournament since becoming a mother in January in Auckland, New Zealand, she suffered a shock third-round loss at the Australian Open to China's Wang Qiang and has not played a competitive match since February's Fed Cup.
There were doubts about Williams' fitness and ability to handle the biggest moments before the pandemic, and these remain as she returns at age 38 with the US Open, which she has won six times, again in her sights.
Confirming her intention to play not only at Flushing Meadows, which has been hit by a string of high-profile withdrawals, but also the French Open starting on Sept 27, the former world No. 1 said: "I see myself doing it all if it happens."
That does not mean she is disregarding the dangers of being exposed to Covid-19.
Williams, who has a history of blood clots and has had life-threatening pulmonary embolisms that affected her lungs, potentially faces greater risks than an average world-class athlete if she contracts the virus.
"I don't have full lung capacity, so I'm not sure what would happen to me," she said. "I'm sure I'll be OK but I don't want to find out. I have like 50 masks I travel with. I never want to be without one."
The world No. 9 also revealed that the crisis has turned her into "a little bit of a recluse", mostly staying at home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, with her husband, Alexis Ohanian, and their two-year-old daughter, Olympia.
Winning her 24th singles Slam with a new generation of players rising would, however, be perhaps her finest achievement and the situation in which tennis finds itself only makes the chase more intriguing.
"If she wins this US Open as her 24th, it will be the toughest Grand Slam title she's ever going to win or maybe anybody for that matter," said Chris Evert, an 18-time Major singles champion.
The hard-court Grand Slam will not have a full-strength field. Ashleigh Barty of Australia, the No. 1 women's singles player, already has withdrawn. So have No. 5 Elina Svitolina and No. 7 Kiki Bertens, and No. 2 Simona Halep is leaning that way, too.
But major threats remain. For Mouratoglou, the key for Williams to break her drought in New York is not to block out No. 24.
"When you have an elephant in the room, you can say you don't see it, but it's not easy to believe it," he said.
NYTIMES