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January 5, 2012

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Serena withdraws from Brisbane with ankle injury

FIVE-TIME champion Serena Williams is in doubt for the Australian Open after injuring her left ankle and withdrawing from the Brisbane International.

In her first tournament since losing the US Open final in September, Williams was serving for the match yesterday with a 6-2, 5-3 lead against Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia when she twisted her ankle and crashed heavily to the court.

The 13-time grand slam winner lay near the baseline for several minutes while getting medical attention. She was helped to a courtside chair and had the ankle re-taped before resuming the second-round match and losing the next point to surrender a service break to Jovanovski.

Williams limped through the next game, wincing in pain after at least two points, before securing a 6-2, 6-4 win to advance to the Brisbane quarterfinals in her first trip Down Under since winning the 2010 Australian Open title.

She withdrew from the Brisbane tournament later after having medical scans which "confirmed that I have a left ankle sprain (and) that I probably shouldn't play on." "I'm going to take a couple of days off - not too many - and see how I feel," Williams said in a statement. "I'm still hopeful of playing the Australian Open."

The Australian Open starts on January 16 in Melbourne.

Williams missed the 2011 Australian Open while she was recovering from two operations on her foot and blood clots in her lungs that kept her sidelined for about a year after the 2010 Wimbledon tournament.


 

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