Serena just made a bold inference by giving out a bold statement.
The world's No. 1 player, who will take on her best friend (besides Venus) on the WTA Tour, Caroline Wozniacki, on Tuesday in an exhibition in Madison Square Garden, has been idle since losing the Australian Open final to Angelique Kerber due to various illnesses.
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But she announced her return with a vengeance, according to tennisworldusa.org.
"I'm ready to go," Williams said. "There's nothing that can stop me right now besides me."
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While the statement itself isn't all that startling -- tennis pundits have recognized that fact about Williams ever since she elevated herself to the No. 1 ranking way back in 2002 -- it does suggest something about the state of her current game.
That she realizes she choked against both Kerber in Melbourne last month and against Roberta Vinci in the semifinals of the U.S. Open last September.
Williams was attempting to complete the calendar Grand Slam in New York last fall, and as her match against Vinci went on, Serena became visibly tighter. She and her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, both would say later that a right knee injury that had been plaguing Williams during the second half of 2015, was a contributing factor.
Her stunning losses in her last two Grand Slam events has raised questions about her dominance and whether her aura has suffered because of the losses -- making her even more beatable moving forward.
After Serena's exhibition against Wozniacki, she will return to Indian Wells, playing the event in back-to-back years after a 14-year absence. 2016 will mark the first time that both she and Venus will compete there since 2001 -- the year the Williams claim they were the victims of hatred and racist remarks.
The two were scheduled to compete against each other in the 2001 Indian Wells semifinals, but Venus pulled out just a few minutes before their match. Venus and their father, Richard, attended Serena's finals match against Kim Clijsters, and Richard claims that he and Venus were the victims of racial insults, along with a mixture of boos and heckling, as USA Today Sports' For the Win recounts.
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