Serena rusty, manages win in return at Eastbourne

EASTBOURNE, England (AP)—Playing tennis again after recovering from blood clots in her lungs and two foot operations, Serena Williams slipped and fell in the final game of her match at Eastbourne.

She got up immediately and carried on the point, although she lost it. But it was not long before the 13-time Grand Slam champion was a winner once more.

After nearly a year off the WTA Tour, Williams regrouped after a slow start to defeat Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 Tuesday in the first round of a Wimbledon warmup.

Williams was briefly worried about tweaking the right foot that was in a cast for 10 weeks.

“I felt a little something. I got a little nervous,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh.’ Then I thought this is grass. You know, you’re really moving. You’re stopping, you’re going. If I can survive this, especially with this long match, I’ll be good.”

Wearing a pink dress that she said was inspired by French actress Brigitte Bardot, Williams walked onto the court to the song “I’m The World’s Greatest,” chosen by organizers. She was given a warm welcome when introduced to a stadium three-quarters full.

She initially looked nothing like the player who lifted the 2010 Wimbledon trophy in her last tournament. Her movement was uncertain, and she appeared not to trust her groundstrokes or her usually dominant serve.

She held for the first time at 5-0 down, with the help of her first ace. Williams reeled off the first three games of the second set to take control. Despite squandering a 2-0 lead in the last set, she broke again and victory was secure.

“How difficult was the first set? It wasn’t too difficult, it wasn’t long,” Williams said. “It was over really fast. And I thought, well hopefully I can get some momentum. I think I was just a little anxious and missing a tremendous amount of shots.”

Williams hadn’t played since July after cutting her foot on glass at a restaurant in Germany. She had surgery twice and later was diagnosed with pulmonary embolisms.

By the time she served out the match after two hours on court, the 29-year-old American was breathing heavily. She drew a warning for too much time between points. Williams thought the rebuke too harsh and wondered “whether had I been gone so long that they changed it.”

Still, despite the struggle, Williams enjoyed her return.

“After everything I’ve been through, it’s all fun to me now,” she said. “It’s all a bonus.”

And not breaking a nail during the fall was a plus.

“It’s definitely not cool on my nails if I fall,” she said. “I can potentially break one and that makes me really upset. I have three weeks to get through without breaking a nail.”

Williams, unseeded because she has been away so long, looked unsure during warmups. And her play spilled into the match—she dropped the first set in 27 minutes. Her sister Venus, who returned from a hip injury after five months away, began her match Monday with two double-faults. Serena opened her first service game with one of her own.

Pironkova, who reached the semifinal at Wimbledon last year but had won only four matches this year, capitalized on fierce groundstrokes. After trailing 4-0, Williams smacked her racket into the turf in disgust. On winning her first game to make it 5-1, the former top-ranked player heard the rare sound of sympathetic applause. Her opponent then took the set with a forehand winner.

Soon Williams began to look—and sound—like her old self. She greeted winners, and an improving first serve, with cries of “c’mon.” Leading 5-3 in the second set, she trailed 0-30 but responded with a 120 mph ace down the middle and a 114 mph ace out wide.

Williams was still below her best in the third set, and Pironkova’s flat groundstrokes continued to do damage. She rallied to 2-2, but Williams immediately broke again and served it out at 5-4.

Next up is a repeat of the 2010 Wimbledon final against top-seeded Vera Zvonareva, a 6-3, 6-3 winner over British wild card Heather Watson.

“She’s a great player and I have nothing to lose,” Williams said. “I’m going to go in there and do what I can do. Whatever happens, happens.”

In other matches, Ana Ivanovic advanced to a second-round match against with Venus Williams with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Julia Goerges of Germany.

The former No. 1-ranked Serb won her last two events of 2010, but she has lost in the first round in four of her 10 tournaments this season. Her semifinal last week in Birmingham was her first of the year.

“I don’t expect myself to go out there and play great every match,” Ivanovic said. “I just expect myself to work hard. But it’s hard. I do have to think about going back to basics.”

[Edited 6/26/11 10:18am]

WIMBLEDON, England (AP)—Returning to Grand Slam tennis after a year away with health problems, Serena Williams opened her Wimbledon title defense Tuesday by beating Aravane Rezai in three sets—then burst into tears on Centre Court.

After serving her 13th ace to close a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 victory, Williams buried her face in her towel and sobbed from her courtside chair. She was still crying as she left the court, overcome with emotion after enduring a long layoff that included two foot operations and treatment for blood clots in her lungs.

“I usually don’t cry … but it’s just been so hard,” the four-time Wimbledon champion said. “I never dreamt I would be here right now. And then to win. I just wanted to win at least one match here.”

Following Williams on Centre Court was Roger Federer, who began his chase for a record-equaling seventh Wimbledon championship by beating Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-2 in the wind.

Williams fought through a midmatch slump, then reasserted command over her French opponent in the third set with a big serve and powerful groundstrokes. She showed why she is still considered a title favorite despite her long absence and her No. 7 seeding.

“It’s been a disaster year, but I’ve been praying,” Williams said. “To be able to come back at Wimbledon is pretty awesome. I didn’t expect to play. And I didn’t expect to even do anything. So I’m just excited. I’ve never cried with joy for anything.”

After losing the second set, Williams took charge in the final set, winning the last five games.

“I kept thinking, ‘This is Wimbledon,”’ she said.

The point of the match came at 3-1, when Williams stretched for a backhand at the baseline and fell over as she hit a winning lob over Rezai at the net. Rezai said she saw the tears in Williams’ eyes when they shook hands after the match.

“It definitely was so emotional for me because throughout the last 12 months, I’ve been through a lot of things that’s not normal, things you guys don’t even know about,” Williams said. “It’s just been a long, arduous road. To stand up still is pretty awesome.”

Rezai was impressed by Williams’ play and touched by her outpouring.

“It shows she’s not a machine, she’s a human being,” Rezai said. “We all have a heart, we all have emotions. … If she wins the next two or three matches, I think she can win the tournament.”

In keeping with Wimbledon tradition, Williams opened play on Day 2 on Centre Court as the women’s defending champion. She strode onto court wearing a cardigan, and played in a classic dress with blue trim. Her fingernails were painted in the Wimbledon colors of purple and green.

The 61st-ranked Rezai came out hitting hard, breaking Williams in the first game that lasted nine minutes and going up 2-0. But Williams then won five games in a row and took the set with only four unforced errors. Williams lost the momentum in the second set, and Rezai broke in the sixth game to force a third set.

Williams said it was the most emotional she’s ever felt after a victory— and this was only a first-round match.

“For me it wasn’t about winning the match,” she said. “It was about being out there. … It just really goes to show if you don’t give up, you still have a chance. I guess I proved that I could, that I could. I think that sums it up: I could.”

On Court 1, Wozniacki defeated Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain 6-2, 6-1. The 20-year-old Dane had fewer winners than her opponent, but made only five unforced errors.

Jankovic was beaten by Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain 5-7, 6-4, 6-3. The 15th-seeded Serb reached the fourth round at the All England Club last year.

French Open champion and third-seeded Li Na, China’s first Grand Slam winner, advanced with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Alla Kudryavtseva.

Former champion and No. 6 Maria Sharapova beat Anna Chakvetadze 6-2, 6-1. Sharapova, who won the tournament in 2004 but hasn’t progressed past the fourth round since 2006, is the only former champion in the women’s field other than the Williams sisters.

No. 10 Samantha Stosur became the highest seeded player eliminated, falling 6-3, 6-4 to Hungary’s Melinda Czink—the lowest-ranked woman in the draw at No. 262.

Also advancing among the women were No. 4 Victoria Azarenka, No. 8 Petra Kvitova, No. 11 Andrea Petkovic and No. 14 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Men’s winners included No. 7 David Ferrer, No. 13 Viktor Troicki, No. 15 Gilles Simon and No. 21 Fernando Verdasco.

[Edited 6/21/11 14:50pm]

Serena Williams Moves into 4th Round at Wimbledon

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Serena Williams has been known to say she isn't satisfied with this or that aspect of her game, even after easily winning a match, say, 6-3, 6-2.

So it was somehow refreshing to hear Williams actually praise herself after a victory by that very score over 26th-seeded Maria Kirilenko at Wimbledon on Saturday.

Yes, only five matches since returning to the tour after nearly a full year off because of a series of health scares, Williams produced a performance worthy of the 13-time Grand Slam champion that she is. And then Williams talked the talk of someone finally ready to concede that British bookmakers might very well have been right to make her the pre-tournament favorite.

Asked whether she was surprised by the odds, the seventh-seeded American smiled widely and said: "I wouldn't bet against me."

After hitting 10 aces and compiling a 32-9 edge in winners against Kirilenko, Williams termed the showing her "best I've played since I came back."

"I was a little more consistent, and I played my game more," said Williams, trying to become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1991-93 to win three consecutive Wimbledon titles. "Wasn't as tight and nervous and uptight. I was able to relax more today."

A few days after winning her fourth Wimbledon title last year, she cut both her feet on glass at a restaurant. That led to two operations on her right foot; she later was hospitalized for clots in her lungs, and then to remove a pool of blood that gathered under the skin on her stomach.

Understandably, she explained Saturday, she'd been playing tentatively until Saturday.

"You're always thinking, 'I can get hurt again.' You just kind of have to let those thoughts go or anything could happen," Williams said. "And I wasn't thinking that at all today. It was just a big difference."

On Monday, she'll face 2007 runner-up Marion Bartoli. Other fourth-round women's matches include Williams' older sister Venus vs. No. 32 Tsvetana Pironkova, who upset the five-time Wimbledon champion a year ago; Wozniacki vs. No. 24 Dominika Cibulkova; and Sharapova vs. No. 20 Peng Shuai.

After beating Kirilenko — her first straight-set victory in five matches since returning — Williams revealed another, if less serious, mishap from her annus horribilis: She scraped her right shoulder and face when she fell off her pink bicycle during a ride near her home in Florida in October.

"I'm thinking, 'Oh, nooooooo,'" Williams recounted, as though replaying her words in slow motion. "All I thought was, 'Don't fall on my face. Don't fall on my face.' When I fell on my face, I was like, 'No!'"

Since then, she's been sticking to stationary bikes.

The five best and worst dressed players at Wimbledon 2011

By Chris Chase

Yay Wimbledon

There's been some really good matches already. Venus vs Kimiko Date-Krumm was really good.

Serena and Venus are both playing better and better. Bartoli might give Serena a bit of trouble if she's not on top of it.

The Top 4 men are all looking good.

Wow Bartoli takes out Serena. Great match. Bartoli did well to close it out in the tiebreaker. Both ladies were playing unbelievable.

mynameisnotsusan said:

Wow Bartoli takes out Serena. Great match. Bartoli did well to close it out in the tiebreaker. Both ladies were playing unbelievable.

yes it was. I woke up this morning and it was on. I was rooting for Serena but have

to give Bartoli credit. She played well.

mynameisnotsusan said:

Wow Bartoli takes out Serena. Great match. Bartoli did well to close it out in the tiebreaker. Both ladies were playing unbelievable.

Dang that was quick. I'm just glad Serena's been competitive since all her health issues.

Damn Venus just lost too and #1 seed Wozniacki was upset by the #24 seed. What the hell?

No she dont:excited:

SCNDLS said:

mynameisnotsusan said:

Wow Bartoli takes out Serena. Great match. Bartoli did well to close it out in the tiebreaker. Both ladies were playing unbelievable.

Dang that was quick. I'm just glad Serena's been competitive since all her health issues.

It took Bartoli 5 match points and Serena broke her serve to get into a tiebreaker. If she had've got through the breaker, Bartoli would have been toast but credit to her she kept pressing and snuck through but Serena was playing unbelievable on the match points. If she gets a bit more play Serena will be unstoppable at the US Open.

mynameisnotsusan said:

SCNDLS said:

Dang that was quick. I'm just glad Serena's been competitive since all her health issues.

It took Bartoli 5 match points and Serena broke her serve to get into a tiebreaker. If she had've got through the breaker, Bartoli would have been toast but credit to her she kept pressing and snuck through but Serena was playing unbelievable on the match points. If she gets a bit more play Serena will be unstoppable at the US Open.

Amazing considering she hasn't played in almost a year and has been ill up until recently