“I never felt winded like that,” she said of her early practice sessions. “And it felt like no matter what I do, the weight is taking forever to get off, and it was crazy. Finally I was able to get better, but it took forever.”
Ion Tiriac, the owner of the Madrid tournament, where Williams is likely to play next, referred to her weight when asked about Williams and the state of the women’s game in a recent interview with Sport Bild, a German publication.
“With all due respect, 36 years old and 90 kilograms,” or 198 pounds, Tiriac said, adding that he wished women’s tennis had better options.
“I always say people are entitled to their opinion,” said Williams, a two-time champion in Madrid, after being informed of the comment. “Clearly there’s more to women’s tennis than me. There’s a lot more, but I’ll have words with him, believe me, I’ll have words with him. It’s an ignorant comment, and it’s a sexist comment, and maybe he’s an ignorant man.”
Asked why it had been so difficult to drop weight, Williams said she had not yet stopped breast-feeding, which some women maintain is helpful to postnatal weight loss. She had decided to stop earlier this month, but she was instructed by doctors to continue because she had developed mastitis, an infection of the breast tissue caused in her case by the plugging of the milk ducts. The infection contributed to her practicing little between her third-round loss to Venus Williams in Indian Wells and her match with Osaka in Miami.
“Apparently 10 percent of women get it,” Serena Williams said. “So you have to continue to pump and feed until it clears. I’m finally ready to stop a little bit mentally, but it’s definitely going to be hard.”
Consider that yet another challenge for Williams, who has been through so many of them in her 23-year professional career and yet still claims to thrive on them. She maintains that next season, not this season, will be the right time to judge where her tennis truly is. Whenever the end of her career comes, she wants a big-bang finish.
Source : NYtimes
