Serena Williams has not yet decided whether she will play in the Italian Open to defend her title because she is still recovering from her thigh injury.
The top-ranked American, 32, withdrew before her quarterfinal match last week in Madrid. But she went to Rome where she will start her campaign Wednesday.
Last Monday without any commitments, Williams said she is taking it one day at a time. She will still observe her thigh injury for the week. She said she trained a little bit and is still checking how her thigh feels.
The 17-time Grand Slam champion had heavy bandage on her thigh in Madrid. She incurred the injury in her first-round victory against Belinda Bencic.
She denied speculations that she withdrew as precautionary measures. She said, she knows that anything can happen, which is why she doesn’t do things for precaution anymore.
She said she withdrew because she was in a lot of pain and she cant play properly. She said she wants to give her 100 percent every time she played. Since having an injured thigh does not allow her to play with everything she got, she withdrew.
She wants to give the fans everything they came to see and everything they deserve, and having an injured thigh doesn’t even come close to really playing there.
The athletic superstar is Foro Italico’s defending champion. She was also the champion in that league way back in 2002. She is also the defending champion in the upcoming French Open, which will start in a couple of weeks from now.
She will go against Switzerland’s Romina Oprandi or Germany’s Andrea Petkovic. Besides her, there are seven other Americans in Rome including Alison Riske, Madison Keys, Lauren Davis, Christina McHale, Sloane Stephens, Varvara Lepchenko and Venus Williams, the older sister of Serena.
