The world number one was 7-5 2-1 down and 58 minutes into her match against Australia Gold’s Jarmila Wolfe (28) when she retired with a knee injury that had forced her to pull out of her opening match last Monday.
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“It’s still there, it’s going away, but just needs a little more time”. “(Because of) inflammation in my knee I need to rest”.
Williams is using the Hopman Cup as preparation for the defense of her Australian Open crown as she aims to draw level with Steffi Graf and go second on the all-time grand slam winners list. “She is a tough opponent, knee or no knee”, Wolfe said.
In other women’s singles, No. 6-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro advanced to a second-round match with local favourite Sam Stosur, the former U.S. Open champion who recovered from early service breaks in each set to beat Slovakian qualifier Jana Cepelova 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.
Williams trained again briefly on Tuesday and took to the court against Wolfe (nee Gajdosova), but appeared very restricted in her movements especially on her left side.
Williams injured her knee, but had practiced ahead of the opener that had been scheduled for her to play Ukraine’s tennis player Elina Svitolina in a match during mixed-team worldwide competition in Australia’s Perth Arena. “I’ve put a lot of hard work over the off-season and it has paid off”.
The 34-year-old was a slim chance to return to the court for Thursday’s tie against the Czech Republic.
At the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand, defending champion Venus Williams and 2014 victor Ana Ivanovic were ousted in first-round upsets.
Halep is suffering with inflammation in her left achilles and Sharapova is nursing an arm injury before the Melbourne slam which begins on 18 January.
The 31-year-old has frequently failed to hit the heights on home turf, having never won a tournament or progressed past the fourth round at the Australian Open, and she bemoaned on Sunday the unfair emphasis she received for her domestic form.
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Alexandr Dolgopolov, ranked at 36 in the world, got the Ukrainian team off to the best possible start as he claimed a hard-fought 7-5, 7-6 win against Jiří Veselý.
