Serena Williams says her comeback ‘could not have come on a better day’

Serena Williams returns to the full glare of the tennis tour on Thursday – appropriately, on International Women’s Day – more than a year since beating her sister, Venus, in the final of the 2017 Australian Open and six months after surviving a pulmonary embolism giving birth to her first child, Alexis Olympia. It is the sort of grand entrance befitting one of sport’s most remarkable figures.

“I never questioned my return,” the 36-year-old owner of an Open-era record 23 major singles titles said on Wednesday before her comeback match, against Kazakh Zarina Diyas, 24, in a night match in the Paribas Open in Indian Wells – but that is not the whole story.

After testing her fitness in the short-form Tie Break Tens at Madison Square Garden in New York – where she defeated Marion Bartoli, another player on the comeback trail, before losing against Zhang Shuai – Williams told the BBC: “There have been so many days, even still, when I’m like, ‘How am I going to keep going?’ It’s been really, really difficult.

“But I keep going and I know that I might not be at my best yet. But I’m getting there and every day is a new day and every day I should be getting better. As long as I’m moving forward, even if it’s at a turtle’s pace, then I’m definitely OK with that.”

Source: theguardian