Serena Williams out of Wimbledon due to leg injury following slip on slick Centre Court

Jacob Camenker

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Serena Williams out of Wimbledon due to leg injury following slip on slick Centre Court image

Serena Williams' Wimbledon has come to an unfortunate early ending. The American tennis star suffered a leg injury in her first-round matchup against Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

Williams slipped and fell on the slick Centre Court grass at Wimbledon. She attempted to play through her service game with the match tied at 3-3 in the first set, but she couldn't go on.

As a result, she retired from the match, allowing Sasnovich to advance.

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The grass at Wimbledon has drawn quite a bit of attention during the first two days of the tournament, especially on Centre Court. Plenty of players have been slipping on the surface, as rain has made the courts unusually slick.

Several tennis stars have spoken about the issue. Men's world No. 1 Novak Djokovic joked about the conditions on the court after his four-set win over Jack Draper.

“To be honest I don’t recall falling this many times on the court,” Djokovic said.

And in the wake of Williams' exit, British fan-favorite Andy Murray also took a shot at the court.

Roger Federer's match, which took place immediately before WIlliams', was also affected by a slip. The No. 6 player in the tournament emerged with a victory after his opponent, Adrian Mannarino, retired ahead of the fifth set.

Even despite that, Federer was in shock after Williams' early exit.

"Oh my God, I can’t believe it," Federer said after he was told of the news at his press conference, per Mike McIntyre.

Meanwhile, other devastated tennis fans took to Twitter to send their well wishes to Williams — and to let Wimbledon know about the problems that their slick grass is causing.

We'll soon see if the conditions improve at Wimbledon, but with Williams out for the tournament, the damage has already been done.

Jacob Camenker

Jacob Camenker Photo

Jacob Camenker first joined The Sporting News as a fantasy football intern in 2018 after his graduation from UMass. He became a full-time employee with TSN in 2021 and now serves as a senior content producer with a particular focus on the NFL. Jacob worked at NBC Sports Boston as a content producer from 2019 to 2021. He is an avid fan of the NFL Draft and ranked 10th in FantasyPros’ Mock Draft Accuracy metric in both 2021 and 2022.