Billie Jean King says chasing Williams record Williams must see the tennis break as a ‘plus’

Is extra time due corona virus proven useful? Or could it be a barrier, adding more days, weeks, and months to the body clock when the players were like Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal closer to retirement than starting their career? Will there be any effect at all?

An old friend of Williams, a pioneer Billie Jean King told Christiane Amanpour of CNN that Americans should consider it an added value.

“I think you should see it as a positive thing because you have to find out what you need to do,” said the 76-year-old King, founder of the WTA tour, when asked how layoffs would affect Williams. the possibility of arresting Court.

He then touched the element of fitness.

“One thing when you are an older player is you have to be fitter than you ever thought. I played until I was 40,” said King, who fought for his last single match at the age of 40 at the 1983 Australian Open and the final doubles match. 46 years old.

“And I remember sometimes playing against players who were half of my age. So you have to be very, very fit and if I were Serena on leave this time I would enjoy my baby girl and my husband but I would, really only from a physical point of view, drive yourself and be really disciplined to be very fit … so when the tournament starts again you can definitely be ready.

“But I think that’s the most important thing for Serena because once she starts playing the game, she’s amazing.”

Djokovic’s momentum is over

Djokovic was unbeaten in 2020, which included winning the 17th grand slam crown at the Australian Open to get closer to his two main rivals.

At 32 years old, he was a year younger than Nadal and six years younger than Federer.

“Of the three players, he is the most upset,” Becker, a six-time grand slam champion, told CNN last week. “He hasn’t lost a match, he won the ATP Cup for Serbia, he won the Australian Open and then he won Dubai too.”

Adding a grand slam trophy will be difficult for anyone for the rest of the season. Wimbledon, scheduled for July, was canceled because the pandemic and Nadal did not expect resumption in the near future.

The US Open is scheduled for late August, while the French Open – where the Spaniard collected 12 titles – was dropped at the end of September after moving out of his normal slot at the end of May due to a virus.

“From my point of view, I am very pessimistic that the circuit can resume normal activities,” Nadal said in an online interview conducted by the Spanish Tennis Federation in late April. “In tennis, you need to travel every week, stay in a hotel, go to various countries.

“Even if we play without (fans), to organize any event, you need a lot of people involved, which cannot be ignored. At the international level, I see a serious problem.”