Serena Williams gets wild-card entry for Wimbledon singles

Associated PressJun 14, 2022, 9:27 PM EDT

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Serena Williams is going to play at Wimbledon this year, after all. The All England Club announced on Tuesday that Williams was awarded a wild-card entry for singles.

Williams has not competed anywhere since getting injured during the first set of her first-round match at the All England Club a year ago. And her name did not appear on the women’s singles entry list released by the grass-court Grand Slam tournament earlier this month.

But Williams was among six women given a spot in the singles draw on Tuesday, along with five British players: Katie Boulter, Jodie Burrage, Sonay Kartal, Yuriko Miyazaki and Katie Swan.

Two other women will get invitations “in due course,” the All England Club said.

Seven of the eight men’s wild-card berths were also announced, including one for three-time major champion Stan Wawrinka.

Earlier in the day, Williams posted a photo of her white shoes on what appears to be a grass court and the message: “SW and SW19. It’s a date. 2022. See you there. Let’s Go.”

“SW” are her initials, of course, and “SW19” is the postal code for Wimbledon.

The 40-year-old American has won seven of her Open era-record 23 major singles championships at Wimbledon, most recently in 2016.

Williams was the runner-up there in 2018 and 2019 (the tournament was canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic).

In 2021, Williams lost her footing on the slick grass and then her right leg buckled, leading to just the second mid-match retirement at any Grand Slam tournament of her career and first since 1998.

With the lack of activity since then, Williams – who has been ranked No. 1 in the past – is No. 1,208th in the WTA rankings this week. That is why she was not automatically placed in the Wimbledon field.

Iga Swiatek out of Miami Open with rib injury

Associated PressMar 22, 2023, 12:29 PM EDT

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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Defending champion Iga Swiatek withdrew from the Miami Open because of a rib injury that she is hoping will heal during a break from competition.

The No. 1-ranked Swiatek, a 21-year-old from Poland, also will sit out her country’s Billie Jean King Cup qualifier matches against Kazakhstan on April 13-14.

“I wanted to wait ’til the last minute” to decide whether to play in Miami,” Swiatek said at a news conference at the site of the hard-court tournament. “We were kind of checking if this is the kind of injury you can still play with or this is kind when you can get things worse. So I think the smart move for me is to pull out of this tournament because I want to rest and take care of it properly.”

She was supposed to face Claire Liu in the second round.

As a seeded player, three-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek received a first-round bye at an event she won a year ago during a 37-match unbeaten run that was the longest in women’s tennis in a quarter of a century.

“I was also aware at the beginning of the season that it’s going to be hard for me to defend all these (ranking) points,” she said, “because … these streaks, winning all these tournaments – looking logically and statistically, it’s not like it’s going to happen every year.”

Swiatek said after a 6-2, 6-2 loss to eventual champion Elena Rybakina in the BNP Paribas Open semifinals that her rib was bothering her. She explained in Miami that the problem first surfaced late in her quarterfinal victory against Sorana Cirstea a day earlier in California.

“Basically, it’s not like it happened in one minute or one second. It’s not, like, a serious thing, because we caught it … pretty early. So I felt like it was a process,” Swiatek said. “At first with these minor things, your body doesn’t feel anything.”

She said the issue was a problem “in certain movements,” including a “little bit when I served,” but Swiatek also said she’s not too worried about how long she will be sidelined.

The next Grand Slam tournament is the French Open, which Swiatek won last year for the second time. Play begins in Paris on May 28.

Instead of playing Swiatek, Liu will go up against 94th-ranked Julia Grabher, who lost in qualifying but now gets to move into the draw.

Liu advanced Tuesday when her first-round opponent, Katerina Siniakova, stopped playing in the second set because of a hurt wrist. Siniakova also pulled out of the doubles event with Barbora Krejcikova; the Czech duo has won the past four Grand Slam tournaments they’ve entered together, and seven major doubles titles overall.

Giorgi hits 14 double-faults at Miami Open, hangs on to win

Associated PressMar 21, 2023, 11:38 PM EDT

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Camila Giorgi hit 14 double-faults, blew a 5-0 lead in the final set and needed four match points before finally pulling out a 7-6 (4), 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4) victory against Kaia Kanepi in the first round of the Miami Open.

The match lasted 3 hours, 32 minutes, tying for the longest on the WTA Tour this season. The players combined for 30 aces – 19 by Kanepi, who also had seven double-faults.

In the third set, Kanepi was not moving well, and Giorgi raced to a big edge. But after dropping just two of her initial 15 service games, the Italian got broken twice in a row while serving for the victory at 5-1 and 5-3 in the third set.

Kanepi saved one match point at 5-3, another at 5-4 and another in the concluding tiebreaker. Giorgi finally ended things on her next chance with a cross-court forehand winner. She’ll next face 14th-seeded Victoria Azarenka, a three-time champion in Miami and two-time winner at the Australian Open.

All seeded players at the hard-court tournament received first-round byes. Women’s matches in the main draw began Tuesday; the men start Wednesday.

It was a rough afternoon for the Czech teenage sisters Brenda and Linda Fruhvirtova. First Brenda, who turns 16 on April 2, lost the initial nine games of a 6-0, 7-5 loss to Wang Xiyu. And then Linda, 17, exited with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 loss against qualifier Katherine Sebov, who now meets No. 3 Jessica Pegula.

In other action, Rebecca Marino eliminated Yulia Putintseva 7-6 (4), 6-2 to set up a second-round match against 2022 French Open runner-up Coco Gauff; Irina-Camelia Begu trailed 2-0 in the first set and then 5-1 in the second before coming back in both to beat wild-card entry Alexandra Eala 6-2, 7-5; and Marta Kostyuk was a 6-3, 6-2 winner against Elisabetta Cocciaretto.

Claire Liu, an American who is ranked 59th, advanced to a second-round meeting against defending champion and No. 1-ranked Iga Swiatek when Katerina Siniakova stopped playing in the second set Tuesday because of an injured wrist.