World number one Serena Williams has pulled out of her opening tournament on the Emirates US Open Series schedule at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford. The world number one cites an elbow injury being the reason she has withdrawn from the tournament.
The elbow injury was the reason she withdrew from the Collector Swedish Open in Bastad. She was the heavy favorite to win the title as she was the only top 20 player in the field. After winning her opening round match against Belgian qualifier Ysaline Bonaventure, the winner of the last three Grand Slams withdrew from the tournament with the injury before her second round match against Klara Koukalova. Johanna Larsson ended up winning the title.
Serena said she wants to get “back to 100 percent” before playing. She has not even participated in Mylan World Team Tennis for her team the Washington Kastles, the same team her older sister Venus is on.
The seeding impact
With the draw having come out for the tournament, everyone moved up one seed line thanks to the withdrawal. Serena Williams’ best friend Caroline Wozniacki now becomes the top seed and will face the winner of Mirjana Lucic-Baroni and last year’s semifinalist Varvara Lepchenko.
Another top female wildcard, Agnieszka Radwanska, moves to the two seed now. She will face wildcard CiCi Bellis or a qualifier in the second round. Karolina Pliskova now gets her own quarter now moving from five to four in the seeding. However, her draw did her no favors as a potential second round clash with German Sabine Lisicki potentially awaits.
However should Madison Keys get upset (likely quarterfinal opponent), the Czech number three should cruise into the semifinals as Vitalia Diatchenko, Alja Tomljanovic, and Aleksandra Krunic shouldn’t pose too much of a threat for her.
20th-ranked Elina Svitolina now becomes the last person seeded. She’s in an open section of the draw which has third-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro as the highest seed and also has Caroline Garcia and Alison Riske as well.