Serena Williams: ‘I’m tired of playing tournaments unhealthy’

Serena Williams is tired of playing while injured, so she won't be rushing back into top-level tennis until she is good and healed.

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Serena Williams is tired of playing while injured, so she won’t be rushing back into top-level tennis until she is good and healed.

She has been frustrated by injuries to her shoulders and knees this season and is fed up with trying to play through them.

“I’m tired of playing tournaments unhealthy and taking losses that I would never lose,” Williams told CNN.

“I definitely want to make sure I’m healthy and playing at my best or at least 80 percent healthy or 70 percent healthy — that way I can be able to play at a higher level,” she added as she refused to put a date or deadline on her recovery.

Her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, admitted that it had been a rough season for her.

“We have to be honest — it has been a bad season for her,” he told CNN. “She’s been injured a lot, which makes it worse because she couldn’t play much.

“She played only eight tournaments, which is really, really, not much. For Serena, any result that is not a title is a bad result — so a final of a grand slam is a bad result for her. We can’t be satisfied with one grand slam final and two finals lost. It’s a bad year, there are many explanations but we have to learn and be better next year and that is definitely the goal. This is not satisfying at all.”

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