French Open 2018: Serena Williams vs Maria Sharapova called off after American suffers injury

The 23-time Grand Slam champion has been forced to pull out of Roland Garros

Serena Williams’ remarkable comeback at the French Open is over after the 36-year-old American pulled out of her fourth-round showdown with Maria Sharapova here on Monday because of a pectoral muscle injury.

Announcing her withdrawal just minutes before she had been due to go on court to face Sharapova for the first time in two and a half years, Williams said that she had first felt the injury in her third-round victory over Julia Goerges two days ago. It had got worse during her doubles match 24 hours later and become so serious that she could not even serve.

Williams, who has never previously pulled out in the middle of a Grand Slam tournament, will have an MRI scan here tomorrow. She does not know yet when she will be fit to train or play again, but her participation at Wimbledon, which begins in four weeks’ time, is already in doubt.

“I won’t know until I get those results,” Williams said when asked if she had any idea when she would be able to train or play again. “I’m going to stay here and see some of the doctors here, see as many specialists as I can.”

She added: “I have never had this before. That’s one of the things I was telling my team. I was like: ‘I have never felt this in my life. This is so painful.’

“I don’t really know how to manage it yet. When you have an injury that you have had before, you can kind of manage it. I have pretty much had every injury in the book, but this is a little different. I’m clueless as to what to do. I’m just going to do what the doctor thinks I should do and get all the evaluations on it.”

Playing her first Grand Slam tournament for 16 months following the birth of her daughter, Williams had been playing better with each match and had beaten two top 20 players, Ashleigh Barty and Goerges, in the previous two rounds.

Serena Williams withdrew from the French Open (AFP/Getty Images)

“I’m beyond disappointed,” Williams said. “I gave up so much, from time with my daughter to time with my family. I put everything on the court, all for this moment. It’s really difficult to be in this situation, but I always try to think positive and just think of the bigger picture and hopefully the next events and the rest of the year.”

She added: “I have been doing so good. Every match has been getting better for me. Physically I’m doing great. It hasn’t been easy. I sacrificed so much to be at this event. I can only take solace in the fact I’m going to continue to get better. I had such a wonderful performance in my first Grand Slam back. I just feel like it’s only going to do better.”

Looking ahead to Wimbledon and the north American hard-court season, climaxing in the US Open, Williams said: “I’m coming up on hopefully surfaces that are my absolute favourite to play on and that I do best on. Hopefully I can continue to heal and be able to play those events.”

Williams said the muscle had been “really painful” against Goerges. She said she had gone ahead with her doubles match on Sunday – the Williams sisters lost the final set against Andreja Klepac and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-0 – because she had needed to know how she might be able to perform with the injury.

“I really felt like I needed to [play the doubles] because I was never going to know how I would feel under matchplay if I didn’t have that match,” she said. “I tried a lot of different tapings, lots of different types of support to see how it would feel under match circumstances. It didn’t really get a lot better.”

Williams said she had been particularly disappointed not to have the opportunity to play Sharapova, whom she has beaten 18 times in a row. “I love playing Maria,” she said. “It’s just a match I always get up for. Her game matches so well against mine.

“Like I keep saying, I have given up so much to be here. There are times when I’m on the court and I’m practising and I look on the monitor and I see my daughter and she’s playing and I want to be there, but I know that these are the sacrifices you have to make to live out your dream.

“But I also made a promise to myself and to my coach and to my team that if I’m not at least 50 or 60 per cent then I probably shouldn’t play. The fact that I physically can’t serve at all is a good indication that maybe I should just go back to the drawing board and stay positive and try to get better and not get it to a point where it could be a lot worse.

“It was a great effort to come back and it just showed all the hard work I put in for fitness and training and doing something that I love so much. I love tennis and I love being out here and especially at the Grand Slams.”

Thomas Hogstedt, Sharapova’s coach, said the Russian had been waiting at courtside when they heard of Williams’ withdrawal. “It was a shock,” he said. “We were ready. We prepared a long time for this match.”

Sharapova said she wished Williams “a speedy recovery” and added: “I was looking forward to my match against Serena today and am disappointed that she had to withdraw.”

Williams’ withdrawal gives Sharapova a free passage into the quarter-finals, in which she will face Garbine Muguruza, the reigning Wimbledon champion. Muguruza won after her fourth-round opponent, Lesia Tsurenko, retired with an injury after only two games.