French Open 2018: Serena Williams pulled out of Maria Sharapova match to preserve Wimbledon hopes, says coach

Williams’ coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, said she had been in a lot of pain when serving in her warm-up on Monday

Patrick Mouratoglou discussed Serena Williams’ withdrawal (Getty)

Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’ coach, is hoping that the American’s decision to pull out of the French Open will have helped her chances of playing at Wimbledon. Williams withdrew from Roland Garros just minutes before she was due to face Maria Sharapova in the fourth round here on Monday.

“The next plan is to make an MRI to know how bad it is and then do everything so that she has the best chance to play Wimbledon and hopefully win it, because that’s why she came back,” Mouratoglou said.

He added: “We’ll know tomorrow whether we need two weeks, or three weeks, hopefully not more, for her to be able to serve again. There’s no way she can play at the moment, but I also feel that one extra match would have made it really worse and put Wimbledon in danger, but I think she stopped at exactly the right moment.”

Mouratoglou said that Williams had been in a lot of pain when serving in her warm-up on Monday. “There was no chance she could have played normal tennis,” he said. “The pain was much too strong.

“If she had played and been unable to serve normally, she would have risked making the injury much worse. That would have been really stupid. It was really disappointing. She felt she was ready for the tournament. She had worked so hard to be here. She was playing better and better and the last match against Julia Goerges was very satisfying.

“She was starting to compete well, which was something we didn’t know much about because she had not competed for a while. When she did compete in the US, in Indian Wells and Miami, she was not 100 per cent physically.

“I can’t say she was 100 per cent because she has been fitter than she was here, but coming from where she was it’s unbelievable that she was able to play like that. With two or three more weeks I think she would have been 100 per cent.”

Mouratoglou admitted that even he had doubted Williams’ motivation a few months ago but said that she had worked harder than he had ever seen in recent weeks.

“Now I don’t doubt at all that her motivation level is the maximum I’ve seen,” he said. “That might sound strange, but for her to come back is a big thing. It’s an incredible effort. She’s a mum, she wants to spend time with her family, she’s happy with that life.

“In a way she has to, not put that to one side, because obviously she spends a lot of time with her family, but she has to devote a lot of time and change her life for tennis, like travelling around the world. If she does it, it’s because she definitely wants it more than anything.”

“It’s disappointing, of course, because when you pass the first week of a Grand Slam, you’re playing better and better, you feel competitive and you feel: ‘Wow, maybe I’ll lift the trophy at the end of the week.’ It’s super disappointing, for sure, but she has something else in life, a family, a baby, so I think she sees things differently.

“If it had been one year and a half ago she would have been destroyed completely. She is not destroyed. She is sad but she is also happy because she feels she is there. She feels she plays great tennis, she feels she is this close to being completely ready.”