Serena Williams ‘on the mend’, but admits skipping French Open ‘crossed her mind’

French Open
Serena Williams zebra outfit

It wasn’t the best of build-ups to the French Open for Serena Williams and she admits she thought about pulling out of Roland Garros.

The 23-time Grand Slam winner completed only one match on clay before the second Grand Slam got underway as she was forced to withdraw from her round of 32 clash at the Italian Open due to a knee injury.

And she looked sluggish during her Roland Garros opener against Vitalia Diatchenko on Monday as she lost the first set, but bounced back to record a 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory.

“It crossed my mind every day [to pull out], but I’m here. And to do the best that I can do,” Williams said after the match.

“Physically I felt pretty good. Yeah, I’ve had a lot of injuries. I’m usually not an injured player. But I sprained my ankle in Australia and everything went downhill from there.

“I think I’m finally on the mend. But yeah, it’s been a really interesting year for me thus far. I mean, there is only one way for me to enjoy it here. I don’t enjoy places when I don’t win, so that’s why I like playing in all four Grand Slams.”

As for her display against Diatchenko, the former world No 1 admits she made too mistakes.

“I just got nervous out there and I stopped moving my feet,” she said. “And it was like concrete blocks on my feet. I was, like, ‘You’ve got to do something’.

“I was just making so many errors. Every shot I hit, I felt like I was hitting on my frame. I usually don’t hit balls on my frame. I was just off, basically. And then instead of correcting it, I just kept getting worse.

“I knew it couldn’t get worse, and I knew I could only go up. That’s what I told myself. I’ve just got to keep positive.”

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