Serena Williams Plans to ‘Keep Playing’ Tennis, Including the US Open, After Wimbledon Loss and Injury

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Serena Williams is looking to play in the US Open, her coach said

The 23-time Grand Slam champ's comeback at Wimbledon was cut short by a knee injury

After tweaking her knee, Williams was unable to play doubles with her sister, Venus

Despite a disappointing loss in the first round at Wimbledon and an injury that forced her to withdraw from playing doubles with her sister Venus, Serena Williams is continuing her comeback.

"Her intention is to keep playing; the US Open as well," Rennae Stubbs, one of Williams' coaches, said at Wimbledon on Tuesday, July 7. "As long as physically she can go — and I'm hoping in a few weeks that's the case — to get her back on the court and hitting balls."

Williams, who will turn 45 at the end of September, injured her right knee during her wild-card match against Australian Maya Joint last week.

The mother of two, who was making her return to a Grand Slam for the first time in four years, tweaked her knee at the end of the first set, yet still found a way to push the match to three after winning a tiebreaker in the second.

Later, Williams told her coach that the injury held her back.

"She did whisper to me, 'I would have won if I had a good knee,' " Stubbs said. "Leading up to the tournament, she was playing practice sets [and] beating players that are still in the tournament. I won't mention which ones because I don't want to embarrass them but she was playing well."

Williams gave a behind-the-scenes look at her knee issue in an Instagram post on Saturday, July 4, hours before she was scheduled to play doubles at Wimbledon with her older sister.

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"I'm heartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles," she wrote alongside a carousel of videos and photos. "Coming back to compete again has been a gift, and the opportunity to play alongside @venuswilliams once more meant the world to me. I did everything I could to be ready, but unfortunately my knee just isn't ready to compete."

One of the images showed syringes filled with fluid that medical staff had drained from her knee.

Now, the tennis star looks to recoup and rest before possibly playing on wild cards in US Open warm-up tournaments in Cincinnati and Toronto.

"I know that for her, trying to play certainly something before the US Open will be something she would like to do," Stubbs said. "But at the same time it's going to depend on how physically she's doing."

Or, as Williams herself said in her Instagram post: "All I can say is stay tuned to a city near you."

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