TORONTO, Canada – 19-year-old Canadian Bianca Andreescu took down No.8 seed Serena Williams to lift the trophy at home at the Rogers Cup – but the highly-anticipated final unfolded in a manner that no one expected.
Playing in her first WTA-level final since Rome 2016, a tearful Serena found herself unable to continue after just four games into the opening set, retiring from the match citing an upper back injury, trailing 3-1.
Afterwards, Serena told press that the troubles started the night before during her tough, three-set battle in the semifinals against qualifier Marie Bouzkova. During that match, she experienced a painful back spasm, but managed to pull through to win 1-6, 6-3, 6-3.
But in the hours and the night that followed, Serena revealed, the injury progressively became worse and worse.
“Just my whole back just completely spasmed, and to a point where I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t really move,” Serena told journalists in her post-match press conference.
“And so I was just trying to figure out, ‘How do you play a match where you have no rotation?’”
