Serena survives injury scare, makes winning start

ISTANBUL (AFP) –

Serena Williams of the US returns the ball to Angelique Kerber of Germany at the round-robin stage of the WTA Championships tennis tournament in Istanbul. Serena survived an injury scare here Monday to make a winning start in her bid to cap a brilliant comeback season by regaining the WTA Championship title in the tour’s season-end event.

Serena Williams overcame an injury scare here Tuesday during a winning start to her bid to cap a brilliant comeback season by regaining the WTA Championship title.

The Wimbledon, US Open and Olympic champion appeared to pull a gluteal muscle attempting a retrieve in the first set but played through the discomfort to win 6-4, 6-1 against Angelique Kerber, a debutant in this elite eight event.

Williams’ tenacious efforts thus earned her revenge over the improving German left-hander, who upset her in their last meeting, at Cincinnati in August, and who had her moments early on this time too.

The unofficial favourite nevertheless denied that she had suffered any problems, saying: “I feel like I am moving fine, getting a lot of balls back, being really defensive, running down drop shots really easily.”

None of that sounded like Williams’ more usual bellicose approach to the game, however, and certainly there were a few minutes in the fifth and sixth games when a different outcome seemed possible.

Once she held her lower back after failing to reach a ball wide on the forehand side and then she dropped serve in that game after unaccountably hitting wide with a backhand drive from well inside the baseline.

The following game saw Kerber starting to dictate some of the rallies, with Williams again appearing to hold her gluteal region. But her superbly rhythmic service action got her through the next game, and after holding serve again for 5-4 she summoned some adrenaline with fearsome fist pumping and yelling.

Then her standard improved, but Kerber might still have reached 5-5 had she not served a double fault on an advantage point. Williams punished that with two solid attacks which snatched her the set.

Once Williams had broken serve for 3-1 in the second set with a trademark ferocious drive volley, she managed to get on top for the first time, though her victory celebrations seemed subdued.

Determined to project a positive view of her physical state, she suggested she had been “just kind of getting into my rhythm a little bit,” and “obviously trying to do more, but really just feeling my way around pretty much.”

It has been more than six weeks since Williams last competed – when beating Victoria Azarenka in the final of the US Open in New York – and there had been, she volunteered, some strange twinges because that.

“I felt like I had practised too much, and if I hit another practice ball I’m going nuts,” she said. “I was, like, if I have another practice day I don’t know if I can handle it.”

If Williams is suffering any ailment she has little time in which to recover for Wednesday she is first match on against Li Na, the former French Open champion from China.

Earlier the chances of the title changing hands increased significantly when Petra Kvitova, the defending champion, produced a disappointing performance to lose 6-3, 6-2 to Agnieszka Radwanska, the Wimbledon finalist. It was the first time in four meetings that the Czech had lost to the Pole.

Kvitova had been below par while losing in the first round in Tokyo at the end of last month, and now again looked far from her fittest, spraying a shower of 41 unforced errors compared with the sprinkle of a mere five from Radwanska.

Kvitova was tearful and upset both by her performance and the result, and admitted that her sadness and anger had increased after returning to the locker room.

“I was not very comfortable on court and I didn’t feel pretty well,” said the woman who had basked some of her happiest moments here last year.

Radwanska has an immediate chance to build on her success, for tomorrow she faces the second-seeded Maria Sharapova, who overcame the tournament’s other debutant, Sara Errani, by 6-3, 6-2 in a repeat of her French Open final triumph.