LONDON, (Reuters) – Five times Wimbledon champion Venus Williams has called for an end to tennis burnout and urged top players not to head off into early retirement.
“If tennis players could play longer, I think it would be great,” Venus said when asked after her second-round win on Thursday what she would most like to change about the sport.
But she adroitly side-stepped questions about the wear and tear on her own body after appearing on court with her left leg strapped above and below the knee.
The 29-year-old title holder certainly moved with great fluency in her clinical 6-3 6-2 dissection of Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko to move effortlessly into the third round.
Venus had earlier raised alarm bells when she came on court with her knee heavily strapped.
Reporters badgered her with questions about the strapping at her post-match news conference but the American would not be drawn on whether she had any injury worries.
MORE SUPPORT
Amused by the constant probing, she said with a smile: “Well what happened was that I needed some support and then I went and got the support and then I wore it in the match. I’ll be wearing it in doubles too. So it’s working out.”
Asked what sort of pain she was feeling, she quickly batted back her reply by saying: “Yeah, you know, that’s all you need to say is I needed support and it worked well.”
But she was more forthcoming about the issue of burnout in a sport that has lost Belgium’s celebrated duo Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters to early retirement.
“Sometimes we lose stars so early and I think it would help the sport if we could be able to play longer,” she said.
Serena and Venus have in the past been criticised for sticking to such a light schedule but the softly, softly approach has clearly paid dividends.
When asked about when she might contemplate leaving the game, Venus said: “As long as I’ve got great tennis on my racket I’ll keep playing.”
“I definitely see at this point in my career that my priorities will change to make sure that I am physically and mentally refreshed.
“And that will make my career even longer than it has been — and successful.”
