US Open 2019 – Serena Williams to Call Off Her Season After Finals

World Number eight, Serena Williams is all set to create history on Saturday at US Open 2019 finals. The American legend will take on Canada’s rising star, Bianca Andreescu in the championship match. However, before the 23-time Grand Slam champion attains the next milestone of her career, the reports suggest that Serena will be calling off her tennis season 2019 after she concludes her Saturday’s final match.

According to the reports from Amazon Prime and Tennis Channel, Jim Courier and Lindsay Davenport mentioned that Serena Williams will be closing her tennis season 2019 after the women’s finals. Williams will be showing up for the first Slam of the year in Melbourne, Australian Open 2020.

In a way, calling off the tennis season after the US Open 2019 will be beneficial for Serena. In general, playing a sport professionally and at the highest level in late-thirties is certainly beyond the bounds of possibility for most of the women. However, Williams is an exceptional living example of the same.

The 37-year-old isn’t as young as before, and her body can sustain a limited number of professional tennis matches. Considering her age factor, it’s not advisable to play exhaustively for consecutive weeks. Consequently, closing out her tennis season after US Open finals is a wise decision made by Serena.

Moreover, Williams was plagued with injuries throughout the year 2019. Considering her non-Slam participations, she enrolled her name in just five WTA events this year, and she happened to retire from all of them due to her on-going injuries. In other words, pertaining to her fitness issues, Williams did not complete any of her non-Slam WTA events this season.

This year, Serena regrets playing Roland-Garros 2019, and she said it hampered her preparation for the grass-court major. She did not have enough time to prepare for Wimbledon 2019 as she was engaged with the Paris major. However, for the North American swing, she was optimally prepared, but at Rogers Cup 2019 finals, she felt wretched with back spasms.

The time off from professional tennis would give her a substantial amount of time to relax, recuperate from her on-going injuries and be in an optimal form for tennis season 2020. Last year’s after her infamous final match at US Open against Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams called off her tennis season 2018. Later, she turned up on the professional tennis courts at the Australian Open 2019.

During the four-month-long break, she trained rigorously. She focused meticulously on her technical skills and fitness. Serena was super-prepared for Australian Open 2019 but fate had its own plans there.

The American was leading 5-1 in the final set, against Karolina Pliskova in the quarterfinals of Aussie Open 2019, but she landed up twisting her ankle along with that thriving lead. Unable to give her best in the match, Serena lost the final set 5-7.

In 2018, she came back on the WTA Tour after her maternity hiatus and US Open 2018 was her second Slam final appearance as a mother, and the first one was Wimbledon 2018 finals. Since then Serena entered two more Slam finals. 

Her last title win was at Australian Open 2017, where she defeated her sister, Venus Williams in the finals. That title remains Serena’s latest victory on Tour and she is yet to snap her title-less streak since January 2017.