Serena Williams Says She's Hopeful of `Early Summer' Return After Clot
Tennis player Serena Williams
Jemal Countess/Getty Images for IMG
Tennis player Serena Williams.
Tennis player Serena Williams. Photographer: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for IMG
Serena Williams said she hopes to return to tennis in “early summer” after treatment for a blood clot in her lung, the latest medical setback keeping the 13-time Grand Slam singles winner off the court since July.
Such a timetable would knock Williams out of the French Open, which starts May 22, and jeopardize her defense of the championship at Wimbledon, which begins June 20.
Williams, 29, was treated for the clot last week, Nicole Chabot, Williams’s publicist, said today in a statement. The former No. 1-ranked player on the WTA women’s tennis tour also recently sustained a bruise caused by internal bleeding, which Chabot called an “unexpected scare.”
“This has been extremely hard, scary and disappointing,” Williams said in the statement. “I am doing better, I’m at home now and working with my doctors to keep everything under control. I know I will be OK, but am praying and hoping this will all be behind me soon. While I can’t make any promises now on my return, I hope to be back by early summer. That said, my main goal is to make sure I get there safely.”
Chabot said “everything was caught in time,” and that Williams was under “strict medical supervision.”
Six-Month Absence?
Williams, who hasn’t played a competitive match in more than seven months, may miss up to six months as she recovers from the condition, according to Jonathan Orens, associate director and clinical chief of pulmonary care at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Williams last played in July, when she won her fourth Wimbledon title. She cut her foot on a shard of glass in Germany following the victory and had surgery that month. Williams had a second operation in October after re-tearing a tendon in her right foot.
Raed Dweik, director of the pulmonary vascular program in the department of pulmonology and critical care medicine at Cleveland Clinic, said Williams’s clot may be a result of the foot injury.
“This commonly happens after surgery, or if you have a cut or injury to the foot that’s immobilizing,” Dweik said in a telephone interview. “A cast can be high risk, since the blood in the vein doesn’t get pumped as regularly.”
Chest Pain
A blood clot that starts elsewhere in the body can easily get caught in the lungs, which act as a filter, Dweik said. Symptoms, experienced by roughly half of those with the condition, may include shortness of breath, chest pain or coughing up blood, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The goals of treatment are to keep the clot from growing and new clots from forming, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Blood thinners, which block the body’s ability to create clots, are usually prescribed and the body will dissolve most clots with time, according to the institute.
Blood-clot risks include long periods without movement, such as during plane and car rides. According to People magazine, Williams discovered the clot after returning to California on a flight from New York, where she was meeting with doctors about her foot.
‘Risk Factor’
“Immobility is also a risk factor because that allows the blood to pool instead of circulating,” Samuel Goldhaber, director of the venous thromboembolism research group at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, said in a telephone interview. “That’s why you read on travel brochures to take precautions during long plane rides.”
Pulmonary embolism, the third-most common cardiovascular disease after heart attack and stroke, can also be a result of genetic traits, Goldhaber said.
Williams has 37 career WTA victories and has earned more than $32 million in prize money. The American has won 12 Grand Slam doubles titles and two Olympic gold medals in doubles, all with her sister Venus Williams.
Williams may be advised to stay off the court for as long as six months to allow the blood thinners to work, according to Orens, of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Most physicians would suggest bed rest for a few days, then to avoid aggressive physical activities for four to six weeks in a conservative recovery program, he added.
‘Residual Clot’
“Most of these clots come from the leg, and there may be a residual clot,” Orens said. “Aggressive activity could break that clot off, allowing it to also move to the lung, so that’s the concern.”
If Williams is sidelined for a full six months, she would miss the U.S. Open, which starts on Aug. 29, for the second consecutive year. She has won the season’s final Grand Slam event in New York three times, most recently in 2008. She also would fail to win at least one Grand Slam title for the first year since 2006. Williams also pulled out of the Australian Open in January.
Forbes Magazine last year rated Williams the second highest-paid female athlete in the world, after tennis player Maria Sharapova.
Williams made $20.2 million in 2009, including $6.5 million from prize money, the same year that she became a minority owner of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, according to the magazine. The WTA’s all-time leader in prize money, her sponsors include Nike Inc. (NKE), Wilson Sporting Goods Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS), and PepsiCo Inc.’s Gatorade, according to her website.
Career Slam
Williams’s 13 career Grand Slam singles titles are sixth on the all-time list, and her 27 combined Grand Slam titles, including doubles and mixed doubles, are eighth- most in the history of the sport. She is one of nine players to have won all four of the major tennis events at least once.
Williams’s success has been accompanied with controversy. Her 6-4, 7-5 loss to Kim Clijsters in the semifinals of the 2009 U.S. Open ended when Williams was assessed a one-point penalty for verbally abusing a lineswoman who had called a foot fault on the previous point. In an expletive-laced tirade, Williams said that she was going to take a tennis ball and shove it down the lineswoman’s throat, ESPN reported.
Williams apologized two days later for what she called “my inappropriate outburst.” The WTA fined her $175,000.
Williams lost her No. 1 ranking to Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki on Oct. 11 and is now ranked No. 11. She was scheduled to play in an exhibition next week with Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Sharapova in Eugene, Oregon, according to the event’s website.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eben Novy-Williams in New York at enovywilliam@bloomberg.net; Elizabeth Lopatto in New York at elopatto@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net.
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