London: Serena Williams, a seven-time champion, suffered a second straight start to the first round of Wimbledon when she was stunned by French debutant Harmony Tan in an epic Center Court night on Tuesday (AEST Wednesday).
A year after the American retired injured from what many feared would be her last Wimbledon match, her return was eagerly awaited, but Tan, the 115th-ranked, broke the script by a 7-5 1-6 7-6 (10-7). ) to win.
With the roof of the center court closed and the time approaching the Wimbledon curfew at 11pm, Tan had a snatched game point when Williams served 5-6 on a decisive roller coaster set. .
A tired Williams seemed to be close to victory as they advanced 4-0 in the tiebreaker played at 10.
But Tan, who had never played a Wimbledon main draw game before, didn’t finish and took a 9-7 lead before sealing the victory as Williams scored a right-footed shot.
Williams, who hadn’t played any singles matches since retiring from injury against Aliaksandra Sasnovich at SW19 last year, went through all the thrills in three hours and 11 minutes of drama and put his fans in the spotlight. extreme.
Serena Williams says goodbye to the Center Court audience after her three-set loss to Harmony Tan. Credit: AP
But in the end, the oxidation of so much time away from the track turned out to be too much, as another search for a major number 24 title came to a heartbreaking end.
So, that he had only won two games in the Grand Slam main draw compared to the 98 won only at Wimbledon by Williams, one could hardly believe it after securing victory in his second match point when Williams went launch a live on the network.