In the fourth round match against tenth seed Daniela Hantuchova, Serena Williams was doing pretty well winning the first set 6-2; after Hantuchova recovered at the start of the second set and moved into a 5-2 lead, seventh seed Williams leveled to 5-5.
But then something agonizing happened – while simply walking along the baseline Serena strained her left calf really badly and fell to the ground. While receiving medical treatment she shrieked in pain. It was really stressful to watch her being hopeless like that.
I thought Serena had no option but to retire, she couldn’t walk, let alone run. But a tearful former champion saw the rain approaching, so she wanted to prolong the match and wait for the rain delay which would give her time to heal the injury.
Serena’s wishes came true, she managed to force a tie-break, trailing 4-2 and then it started raining. Hantuchova made a poor job of exploiting Williams’ injury; the Slovakian was probably confused by the whole situation, it’s not easy to play against someone who is in evident pain. (source: BBC Sport)