World's no.1 Serena Williams will defend her title at WTA Finals championship after all. After contemplating on skipping the year-ending tournament, the top female tennis player in this generation has decided to spice up the competition in Singapore.
The competitive juice is still flowing through the veins of the 33-year old Williams, who are seeking fourth straight WTA Finals championships and seventh overall in her surefire Hall of Fame tennis career.
Despite dealing with all sorts of injuries and distractions, Serena managed to keep on top of women's tennis for the first 10 months of the year.
Williams continued to break all kinds of records these past few weeks, starting off with her 18th Grand Slam title at the US Open Championships and her jump to no.4 in the list of the longest reigning world's no.1 players in the history of the WTA Tour (Williams is now just behind Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graff in the rankings).
Williams was gunning to add more crowns in the Asian circuit of the tour, but an unexpected knee injury at the Wuhan Open forced her out of the much prestigious China Open championships in Beijing.
With her left knee swelling, Serena was on the brink of shutting down the remainder of the season and sounded pretty much convinced that she would no longer be able to play at the season-ending tournament in Singapore. Fortunately for her, it seems MRI examination showed no further damage in her knee.
With all directions pointing to another historic run in the Lion City, the pressing question now is how motivated Williams will be in the tourney after a physically and emotionally draining year? How much of a distraction would her partying habits and relationship problems play in her latest campaign?
According to tennis writer Douglas Perry of Oregon Live, an unmotivated and hobbling Williams could be vulnerable to a 'non-rival' who is talented enough to pull off an upset when given a chance.
Since winning back-to-back over Williams in the finals of the Wimbledon Open and WTA Tour Finals in 2004, Sharapova has not won a single match against Serena in their last 14 head-to-head outings. Williams has dominated their matchup to the point that she only allowed Sharapova to win a set only once in their last 10 matches.
Based on stats alone, Sharapova clearly doesn't deserve to be considered as Williams' rival in this era, even despite her current status as the world's no.2 female netter in the world. However, if there's a better time to catch Williams unguarded, Perry believed now is the right time for Sharapova to strike.
"Will we see a hobbling, not-entirely-focused Serena at the WTA Finals? She's won major championships when hobbling and not entirely focused, but it does present an opportunity for her non-rival,"according to Perry.
"Sharapova could finish the year as World No. 1 with a win at the WTA Finals. She's never done that before. So she has all the motivation she needs. The question is how much motivation Williams has to maintain her dominance over Sharapova and keep her rankings reign going."
For the last three years, the WTA championship has been all about Williams and her unmatched prowess in women's play. Serena has been super-dominant to the point that everyone in Las Vegas are going all in for her to win the crown without dropping a set.
But a change of guard could soon happen, and Sharapova leads the pack of contenders trying to prove that the Queen of tennis isn't immortal after all.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
