It wouldn't be a big deal if Serena Williams didn't already take three months off to fix it.
The world's No. 1 player withdrew from her first match at the Hopman Cup -- a team event involving eight nations pitted against each other -- in Perth, Australia, on Monday due to a minor knee injury, according to CNN.
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"I'm disappointed to not take to the court in Perth today," Williams said after sustaining the injury while practicing ahead of the USA's tie against Ukraine. "I had every intention to play this morning. Unfortunately due to inflammation in my knee, I need to rest and am confident to be out there against Aussie Gold (Tuesday) evening.
The Hopman Cup is a tuneup for the Australian Open, which is later this month. But for a lot of tennis players, the year's first major actually marks the end of their calendar year in terms of training and participating in tournaments
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Williams intends to compete on Tuesday, but the knee injury could be problematic. She withdrew from the finals at Indian Wells last March because of the same knee injury, ESPN reported.
And after the dust settled from her shocking U.S. Open semifinals loss to Roberta Vinci, Serena and her coach Patrick Mouratoglou talked about her knee injury being a bigger factor than she originally let on, factoring in her decision to end her 2015 season prematurely.
"I am taking a proactive step and withdrawing from tournaments in Beijing and Singapore to properly address my health and take the time to heal," Williams said in a statement at the time.
Added Mouratoglou: "The cartilage is not gone, not all of it, but a big part. She has bone bruises and if you keep on playing with this for too long, the next step is a stress fracture. At her age, her career could really be in danger if she went too far and got more injured like Rafa [Nadal] did in the past. He kept on playing with the same problem and then it got worse and he had to stop for almost a year.
"We don't want this to happen. She is 34. If she has to stop for a year then it is really bad for her."
She already stopped for three months, so it's a quarter of the way in becoming really bad for Williams.
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