Serena Williams’ quest for a 24th Grand Slam title came to an end when she lost to Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals of the US Open 2020.

A tough match for Serena. Physically she had to do a lot of running. After Azarenka had lost the first set, the Belarusian upped her intensity. Serena was made to run a lot for her points and that seemingly fatigued the 23-time major champion. 

Serena also had to call the physio to treat her ankle in the third set. Her ankle was heavily strapped and it raised questions regarding her fitness and whether that affected her performance.

Serena Williams on her ankle injury during the match

“It wasn’t much. I just was stretching. Like, I ran for a shot. Off that first step that I took, it was a long point — it wasn’t my ankle, it was actually my Achilles. It just overstretched. It was pretty intense. Then that was that.” Serena said in her post-match press conference.

Serena said that Azarenka played well. She indicated that the ankle never troubled her and didn’t influence the outcome of the match.

“I mean, it feels fine, I don’t think it had anything to do. I think Victoria played well. It didn’t affect my play ultimately at all, just for that one point. Yeah, it’s fine. I’m fine, yeah.” she added

This match again raised questions around Serena’s charge for her 24th major and whether she still wants to do it and can she do it.

“I don’t know, I just — I don’t know. I haven’t thought about that actually, I don’t know.”

In the US Open, Serena wasn’t moving well. The athletic part of her game has been diminishing and that was seriously exposed against Azarenka. She will now have to quickly adapt to the clay courts as the tour moves to Europe for the clay season. She has a week to work on her game but on clay, it will be difficult for Serena Williams.

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