Serena Williams said Monday that she \u201ccan\u2019t wait for the future\u201d as she warmed up for her return to the WTA Tour at the Tie Break Tens exhibition at Madison Square Garden. The 23-time Grand Slam champion is competing at the elite Indian Wells hardcourt tournament this week, her first tour action since her 2017 Australian Open triumph.<\/p>\n
Williams was pregnant when she lifted the trophy in Melbourne last year, and missed the rest of 2017 awaiting the birth of her daughter in September.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s event, which featured eight players facing off in 10-point \u201csuper tie breaks\u201d as they vied for a $250,000 winner\u2019s prize, was a chance to sharpen her skills.<\/p>\n
Williams bowed out in the second round, gaining a 9-7 lead over China\u2019s Zhang Shuai but eventually falling 13-11.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was good,\u201d she said of the experience. \u201cI wish I would have made a few more shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams opened the laid-back event with a 10-5 victory over Marion Bartoli, the 2013 Wimbledon champion who announced in December she was planning to return to the court more than four years after retiring in the wake of her only Grand Slam triumph.<\/p>\n
After correcting the protocol for the \u201crock-paper-scissors\u201d game used to determine who served first, Williams fell behind 4-2, but a double-fault from Bartoli followed by two aces from Serena saw the American great ahead 5-4.<\/p>\n
A couple of forehand winners and a service winner saw Williams take an 8-4 lead, and she finally finished it off with another winning serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels different, it feels good,\u201d said Williams, who returned to competition with a Fed Cup doubles loss alongside her sister Venus last month.<\/p>\n
The birth of Williams\u2019s daughter, Alexis Olympia, was followed by complications that scuppered the player\u2019s plans to defend her title in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
But Williams says she\u2019s aiming to be back at her best — apparently more than comfortable with coach Patrick Mouratoglou\u2019s comments to wtatennis.com that her goal for this season \u201cwill be to win Grand Slams.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone should have high expectations,\u201d said Williams, who will be unseeded at Indian Wells and open her campaign against 53rd-ranked Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the message that I\u2019m sending.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bartoli, who was forced to pull out of an exhibition event at Wimbledon last year because of a mystery virus and dramatic weight loss, has said she was targeting a return to the WTA Tour at the Miami Open later this month.<\/p>\n
However, the 33-year-old told AFP her timetable would depend on how her body holds up to training.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not know if my shoulder and my knees are going to hold, there are so many question marks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Serena Williams said Monday that she \u201ccan\u2019t wait for the future\u201d as she warmed up for her return to the WTA Tour at the Tie Break Tens exhibition at Madison Square Garden. The 23-time Grand Slam champion is competing at the elite Indian Wells hardcourt tournament this week, her first tour action since her 2017 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23952,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23950\/revisions\/23952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}