If her rivals hoped her life-threatening health scare had mellowed her, Serena Williams had bad news on Monday as the American sauntered back into the spotlight on England’s south coast. Wearing a smart black jacket, white T-shirt and black leggings and a dazzling smile, the 29-year-old radiated health as she spoke of the long journey back from her “death bed” to preparing for an unlikely defence of her Wimbledon title. “I’m definitely going to still get really serious about line calls,” Serena told a packed news conference when asked if her enforced absence triggered by slicing open her foot on broken glass in a Munich bar last July had doused her fire. “I probably won’t make the same threats. But my attitude hasn’t changed. I still cracked a couple of rackets in practice. But that’s good,” added the 13-times grand slam champion who famously launched an expletive-ridden tirade at a female line judge in the 2009 U.S. Open semi-finals. “That just still makes me feel like I have that desire, and, I have that, insatiable, just innate thing inside me that I just want everything and I just want to win and I want to do well.” With elder sister Venus playing her first match since January on centre court at the tranquil Devonshire setting, Serena’s appearance in the rambling grounds caused quite a buzz. Schoolchildren raced after the imposing Williams and even some of the players on the practice courts stopped to stare at the player whose glittering career had seemed in danger of a premature ending during the darkest moments of this year.
Asked what she missed most while she recovered from surgery to repair foot tendons and then, more worryingly, the pulmonary embolism that needed emergency treatment in February, she did not beat about the bush. “It sucked because I missed a lot, I left ranked number one,” she said. “That’s what I miss most is just being on top of the game and just playing some really good tennis. I am really excited to be back.” With so much conjecture about the state of her health, Williams explained in candid detail just how close the blood clots on her lungs came to ending her career and even her life. “I had several clots bilaterally, in both lungs,” she explained. “A lot of people die from that because you don’t recognise it. Me being an athlete, I couldn’t breathe. I honestly just thought I was out of shape. I thought I needed to get on the treadmill or something.
“(The doctors) just said it could have gotten a lot serious a day later or two days later. It could have been really not good. It could have possibly been career-ending. For the grace of God I got there in time and I was able to recover from it.” While Williams has endured her fair share of injuries during her career, she said the latest comeback was the toughest. “This is totally different,” she said. “I’ve had some serious health problems and I was literally on my deathbed at one point in my career or my life.
“This is like a totally different road where I’m more or less thinking, okay, I have nothing to lose at this point.” Not that the dominant force in women’s tennis for the past decade is merely back for appearances. “I’m here not to lose,” Williams, who will take her first competitive steps on Tuesday against Tsvetana Pironkova, told reporters. “I’m hoping I can peak at Wimbledon. I can peak hopefully in the second week, and hopefully I’ll get there.”
