World No. 1 Serena Williams overcame another tough challenge in her hard draw at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday, in the second round defeating French upset-maker Alize Cornet 7-6 (5), 6-2.
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The No. 1-seeded American was beaten 6-4, 6-3 on Tuesday night by Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.
There was no stopping the world number one as she held two break points to increase her second set lead to five games to one.
Williams is the only real hope for a gold medal in tennis for the United States, after her sister Venus Williams was eliminated on the opening day and after the pair of them together lost their first ever Olympic doubles match on Sunday. As of February, she’d maintained the title for 157 consecutive weeks – the second-longest winning streak of anyone in the WTA. “I came here for my first Olympic Games with a very open and positive mind and so far the experience has been really great – sleeping in the village, seeing all the other athletes, having a good time”. According to CNN, she pulled out of the 2004 Athens Olympics on the recommendation of doctors who warned her against risking long-term trauma to her knee following an injury.
World number one Djokovic faces Argentine giant Juan Martin del Potro, the 2009 US Open champion. It’s all the more marked in the case of an icon like Williams.
“There is nothing better than this in our sport, this is it, and I can’t believe we finally achieved it after all these years of dreaming of it”. The flip side of this one says that despite the drama and struggle, Williams did what Djokovic, Agnieszka Radwanska, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Venus and Ana Ivanovic – to name a few – have failed to do. That was painfully clear to Williams when she found herself down double-set point at 4-5.
Defending champions Andy Murray and Serena Williams defied high winds to breeze into the Olympic tennis second round Sunday as organisers were blasted for allowing play in conditions described as “ugly”.
Williams said she was “happy to get through” on a day in which the wind whipped on the hardcourts.
Williams is not slated to participate in next week’s Western and Southern Open.
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“I was a little bit nervous at the start”. They were defeated by Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova 6-3, 6-4.
