Former world No.1 Venus Williams says she will not play another tournament this year after crashing out of the French Open.
The 40-year-old slumped to a 6-4, 6-4, loss against Anna Karolína Schmiedlová who is currently ranked almost 100 places lower than her in the WTA rankings. Williams struggled to find consistency in her serve throughout and was unusually broken six times in a row between the first and second sets. A former finalist back in 2002 it is the third year in a row where the American has fallen at the first hurdle in Paris.
“It’s been a very long year of quarantine. Now I’ll get to rest. So I’m looking forward to that,” Williams told reporters.
Williams will be eager to forget 2020 and not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic which caused the sport to pause for months earlier this year. On the Tour she played in eight tournaments with her sole victory being against Victoria Azarenka at the Top Seed Open last month. Making it by far her worst season on the Tour. When asked if she plans to play anywhere else after the French Open, Williams stated that she has no intentions to do so.
“I’m going home from here. I’m done. If there is somewhere to play, I won’t be there,” she said.
“Being separated from the people you love probably is the challenging part (of 2020). Obviously not being able to be on tour is also a challenge and not having the fans is pretty rough, also.”
Despite a dip in results in recent times, the five-time Grand Slam champion says she isn’t ready to hang up her racket just yet. Williams is currently the second oldest player to have a WTA ranking and oldest to be inside the top 400. When she made her French Open debut in 1997 Schmiedlová was only two-years-old.
“I just stepped off the court. So even though it hasn’t been a ton of tournaments, it’s still been a very long year. I’m not looking forward to it (2021) yet,” she concluded.
Meanwhile, Schmiedlová faces a tough test in the next round when she takes on 10th seed Victoria Azarenka who has defeated five top 20 players in her 15 most recent matches. It will be the first ever Tour meeting between the two.
