Serena Williams will the season ending WTA Finals for the second year in a row because of her right shoulder injury. So next week WTA Finals in Singapore will be played without this super champion. The American world number two, 35 has not played since reaching the semi finals of the US Open in September. Now because of Serena Williams out of the game her place could go to British number one Johanna Konta, who is ninth in the ranking who is also suffering from an abdominal injury. The top eight players get to qualify automatically for the end of the season a final which is to be played from 23-30 October.
Konta who reached the final of the China open this month pulled out of last week’s Hong Kong Open and will also not compete in this week’s Kremlin Cup. If Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro or Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova who are 10th and 11th in the ranking win the tournament in Moscow they will leave Konta behind in the ranking. Konta, 25 is aiming to become the first British female player to reach finals after Virginia Wade in 1980.
Serena Williams having won five tour finals said: “I am really, really bombed that I won’t be able to compete.
“It has been a really tough year for me, just dealing with my shoulder injury. “My doctor insists that I stay at home and heal it every single day so I can have a chance to play next year.”
Serena Williams has played in only eight tournaments in 2016, winning two of them including Wimbledon in July. She hasn’t played since losing to Karolina Pliskova in the U.S. Open semi-finals in early September. This defeat resulted in Williams ceding the No. 1 ranking to Angelique Kerber after a 3½-year stay at the top.
Serena missed Singapore last year too and she has played finals only none times in her nearly two decade career. Last week Serena was spotted not on the tennis court but in Disneyland. She is been struggling with her shoulder problem since this summer. What concerns more is that would this long spell of being out of the court will make then start feel lonely. However one thing is for sure that Serena Williams is both mentally and physically strong and of the five majors that she has played since, she has won one that qualifies as a dry spell for the 22 time slamp champ. Serena is already 35 so she still has some more time as even Martina Navratilova played on tour in her late 40’s though she won her last slam at 33.
