> Serena Williams injures knee, pulls out of semi
> By JOSH DUBOW, AP Sports Writer
> Jul 20, 12:38 am EDT

> AP - Jul 15, 5:31 pm EDT Tennis Gallery STANFORD, Calif. (AP)—Serena
> Williams’ busy summer schedule caught up with her, making her the
> latest U.S. Olympian dealing with a knee injury as the Beijing Games
> approach.

> Williams injured her left knee and pulled out of the Bank of the West
> Classic on Saturday, joining sister Venus and Lindsay Davenport on the
> injured list.

> Williams retired from her match after losing the first set and falling
> behind in the second set of her semifinal against qualifier Aleksandra
> Wozniak.

> “It was hurting in practice and I didn’t really practice too long
> because it was hurting,” Williams said. “After I got off, it was
> really swollen. I thought that I have to play really fast.”

> Wozniak will play in Sunday’s final against sixth-seeded Marion
> Bartoli, who beat Ai Sugiyama 6-3, 6-3 in the other semifinal.

> Williams lasted only 46 minutes before pulling out of the match
> trailing 2-6, 1-3. Williams said the injury is different than one that
> forced her to undergo surgery on her left knee in 2003 and miss eight
> months. But that knee has bothered her since, forcing her to drop out
> of the 2004 Athens Olympics and to miss significant time again in
> 2006.

> But Williams had felt healthy most of this year, playing a busy
> schedule since winning in Miami in the beginning of April. She played
> 26 matches in a three-month span that went through her loss in the
> Wimbledon final to big sister, Venus.

> Then she returned home and played for the Washington Kastles of the
> World Team Tennis league before arriving at Stanford for her debut in
> this tournament. Williams wouldn’t blame her decision to play team
> tennis on her latest setback.

> “You know that risk going into it,” she said. “It is what it is. I
> can’t blame that. I just think in general I’ve been playing a lot of
> tennis since Miami—especially for me.”

> Venus Williams and Davenport have already pulled out of next week’s
> East West Bank Classic in Carson, Calif., due to right knee injuries.
> Serena Williams said she still plans to go to Carson, but will likely
> have an MRI before then and could choose to rest up for the Olympics
> next month.

> “I do plan on obviously being at the Olympics,” she said. “That’s my
> main goal.”

> Williams struggled from the start against the 85th-ranked Wozniak and
> first called for the trainer when trailing 5-2 in the first set. She
> got the knee heavily taped and came out to finish the set, but
> appeared to struggle to plant on her injured leg.

> “It’s unfortunate that she pulled out,” Wozniak said. “I think in the
> middle of the first set she started looking at her leg. I didn’t know
> if it was her ankle bothering her. But at the end it was her knee.”

> Wozniak held serve to win the set and won 11 straight points to take a
> 3-1 lead early in the second. Williams then aggravated the knee while
> stretching for a backhand in the fifth game of the set and retired
> from the match. She walked off the court and embraced her father,
> Richard.

> “I actually thought it felt better once I got it wrapped,” Williams
> said. “But Wozniak kept moving me. I was hoping she wouldn’t but I
> guess she knew better. That didn’t help at all.”

> It’s been quite a week for Wozniak, who needed to win three matches in
> the qualifying tournament just to make it into the main draw. She then
> beat eighth-seeded Francesca Schiavone in three sets in the first
> round, before knocking off Sybille Bammer and Samantha Stosur to make
> it to the semifinals.

> Wozniak is the first qualifier to make the final at this tournament
> since the inception of computer rankings in 1982.

> This is just the second career final for Wozniak, who made it to a
> lower-tiered championship match in Morocco last year. Wozniak, who
> entered the week ranked 85th in the world, should be close to reaching
> her goal of being a top 50 player by next week.

> “I’m really happy with the way I played this week, coming out of the
> qualifying is not easy,” Wozniak said. “It’s a lot of matches in one
> week.”

> Bartoli has had a sporadic year after making it to the Wimbledon final
> a year ago. She lost in the first round at the Australian Open and
> French Open and had not made it to a final since losing to Venus
> Williams last year at Wimbledon.

> Bartoli broke Sugiyama at love to take a 4-2 lead in the first set and
> then won a four-deuce game on Sugiyama’s serve to go up 2-1 in the
> second. Bartoli finished it off by breaking Sugiyama for the fourth
> time of the day, winning for the first time in six career meetings
> against Sugiyama. However, this was the first time the two had met
> since 2006.

> “I was just not on the same level. It’s as simple as that,” Bartoli
> said. “Everything in my game has improved.”