USA tennis star Serena Williams is out of the 2016 Rio Olympics after losing a third-round singles match Tuesday to Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina. “It didn’t work out the way I wanted to, but at least I was able to make it to Rio”.
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The 34-year-old American has won all four meetings against Svitolina, including at this year’s French Open where she gave up just two games.
“To win a gold medal at the Olympics (would) make it so special, and if I can do it it’s just … unreal”, she said.
Second seed Angelique Kerber faces Australia’s 2011 US Open victor Samantha Stosur while third-seeded Muguruza takes on Monica Puig of Puerto Rico. At one point in the game that ended with her getting broken to trail 4-3, Williams leaned forward and tapped her racket twice against the court.
The second set saw a struggling Serena, one who appeared to aggravate a right shoulder injury that forced her out of the Rogers Cup last week, roar back from a break down to level the contest at three games apiece, but it wasn’t enough on Tuesday night. Svitolina, who had never before played in an Olympics, smiled and stuck her arms out in front of her, palms up, as if waking up from a dream.
After less than two minutes, the fight was over: Silva took down Szogedi nd caught her in a stranglehold.
Tennis star Serena Williams is headed home.
Murray is the defending champion from London 2012 and is now the favorite to become the first tennis player to win consecutive gold medals in singles competition.
Still, everything is going exactly to plan for the owner of 14 Grand Slam championships and the 2008 Beijing Olympic title, who beat Italy’s Andreas Seppi 6-3, 6-3. “This is just a flawless moment”, said Svitolina. Williams made 37 unforced errors, including eight double-faults – five of which came in one game.
Puig, who had never beaten a player in the top five before, eased past the world No.4 to set up a quarterfinal clash with Germany’s Laura Siegemund. She then resorted to serving at two-thirds speed, yet not even that helped as she double-faulted a fourth and fifth time in the same game to hand a service break to Svitolina.
“In that moment, I was just trying to stay in the moment and focus on every point”.
So even after Serena lost the first set on Tuesday, there was a general feeling that this match would go to three sets and she would win. As errors from Williams mounted, all Svitolina had to do was keep the ball in play. “Obviously, she was not playing well today”.
Williams follows men’s top seed Novak Djokovic in exiting the Olympics after he was defeated in both singles and doubles.
Svitolina, 21, will face two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova for a place in the semi-finals.
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Serena Williams was the leading gold medallist but has now lost the chance to get any medal for the Olympics at all.
