Serena Williams withdrew ahead of her match with Maria Sharapova due to a pectoral injury.
Maria Sharapova progressed to the quarterfinals of French Open 2018 for a ninth time after her opponent Serena Williams withdrew ahead of the match due to an injury.
Williams pulled out of the scheduled fourth-round match saying she had suffered a pectoral injury that prevented her from being able to serve.
“I unfortunately been having some issues with my pec muscle... right now I can’t actually serve so it’s actually hard to play when I can’t physically serve,” said Williams before the match.
This is the first time she has withdrawn midstream from a Grand Slam singles event.
Williams held an impromptu news conference shortly before the match was scheduled to begin.
“In my doubles yesterday I tried a lot of different tapings and support. It didn’t get a lot better,” she said, “I’m beyond disappointed. I gave up so much from time with my daughter & time with my family all for this moment. So it’s really difficult to be in this situation.”
“Every match has been getting better, physically I’ve been great. I can only take solace in the fact that I’m going to get better.”
“It’s very difficult because I love playing Maria. It’s a match I always get up for. Its extremely disappointing but I made a promise to myself that if I’m not at least 50%, I shouldn’t play”
Serena and her sister Venus Williams were dumped out from the women's doubles event after they lost the deciding set to Slovenia's Andreja Klepac and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Italy on Sunday.
The Williams sisters lost 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-0 to Klepac and Martinez respectively.
Serena was scheduled to lock horns with Russia's Maria Sharapova in one of the most anticipated matches in French Open this year.
Serena enjoys an upper hand in the last 18 meetings so far, winning 16 matches while Sharapova has only two wins to her name, the last of her win which came in the finals of Wimbledon way back in 2004.
In their last encounter, Serena defeated Sharapova 6-4, 6-1 in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in 2016.
However, despite their on-court rivalry being so lop-sided the fourth-round clash was supposed to be the biggest match played on the women's Tour this year.
While Williams was looking to land a 24th Grand Slam title against all the odds having returned from maternity leave, Sharapova is seeking redemption after a 15-month doping ban with a third French Open title.
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