"I didn't feel well still and I still decided to play tennis" - Venus Williams on her 1st title after being diagnosed with autoimmune disease
Venus Williams recently spoke about her victory at the 2012 Luxembourg Open, which was her first title since being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. The American asserted that she continued to soldier through the pain in some moments.
The former World No. 1 was diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease, in 2011 and took some time off from tennis before returning to action at the Miami Open in 2012.
She reached the quarterfinals of the Miami Open and the Italian Open, and the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati. She finally found her form and won the Luxembourg Open.
Speaking in a live video on Instagram, Williams said that she did not feel well at the time but still decided to play tennis and put her best foot forward.
"This one is a different story of when everything was going wrong and you don't really know you're gonna make it when you have to keep going and you have to put your best foot forward," Williams said. "This is a trophy for my first tournament coming back from taking time off from autoimmune disease. So this is 2012 Luxembourg Open, very cool, very abstract, very heavy, I dropped it along the way over here, twice."
"This was my first tournament win, coming back from autoimmune disease and I went to the tournament and scary, it was scary. I didn't know how much I could give, I didn't feel well still and I still decided to play tennis, and when you show up, you gotta show up, you can't complain, you gotta compete. So I got there and didn't know how much I could give, I just showed up and I gave it my best. I put my head down and put my best foot forward every single moment even though I didn't know what that moment was going to bring," Williams added.
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Venus Williams won her 44th singles title at the Luxembourg Open
The 2012 Luxembourg Open marked the 44th singles title of Venus Williams' career. The American started with a win over Belinda Bencic and followed it up by eliminating ninth seed Mona Barthel. She then beat top seed Roberta Vinci to reach the semifinals. Here, Williams came back from a set down to beat Andrea Petkovic.
Venus Williams beat Monica Niculescu 6-2, 6-3 in the final to win the Luxembourg Open. This was the American's first singles title since February 2010. She went on to win another five singles titles after this and also reached the finals of the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2017, with her last title coming in 2016 at the Taiwan Open.
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