{"id":313524,"date":"2023-07-03T22:37:28","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T22:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=313524"},"modified":"2023-07-03T23:02:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T23:02:25","slug":"williams-falls-crashes-out-of-24th-wimbledon-in-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=313524","title":{"rendered":"Williams falls, crashes out of 24th Wimbledon in first round"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five-time Wimbledon<\/a> champion Venus Williams<\/a> has lost in the first round of her 24th appearance at the All England Club.<\/p>\n

Williams fell to the ground at Centre Court early on against Elina Svitolina<\/a>, and her right knee was treated twice by a trainer, including getting taped up during a medical timeout after the second set.<\/p>\n

The 43-year-old American kept playing but could not manage to overcome 2019 Wimbledon semifinalist Svitolina in a 6-4, 6-3 defeat on Monday at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>Demon cagey over girlfriend's awkward Wimbledon draw\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Videos expose fuming England's 'spirit' hypocrisy<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Blues pick Gutho, Walker in surprise shake-up<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Williams was the oldest player in this year's field and the fourth-oldest to compete in the main draw at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

Svitolina was only two when Williams made her Wimbledon debut in 1997 and just five when Williams won the event for the first time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rain came down earlier and the Centre Court roof was closed, before groundskeepers at brought out the leaf blowers.<\/p>\n

Several workers using the hand-held machines paced up and down the hallowed grass in the main stadium to dry the ground from the sudden shower that disrupted play on all courts.<\/p>\n

Watch Wimbledon 2023 live and free on<\/strong><\/em> 9now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. Alternatively, you can stream every match live, ad-free and on demand on<\/strong><\/em> Stan Sport<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, with centre court in 4K UHD.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic<\/a>, the defending champion who was playing Pedro Cachin in the stadium at the time the rain started, clapped when he saw the workers emerge with their leaf blowers.<\/p>\n

He had been trying to dry the grass on his own, waving his white towel over some spots that seemed to be particularly soaked.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"Yes, blow, blow. Blow the air. We need everybody's help," Djokovic looked up to his box and joked.<\/p>\n

The delay lasted more than an hour, with Djokovic in the lead after winning the first set 6-3. The roof, installed over Centre Court in 2009, was reopened before play resumed.<\/p>\n

Djokovic won 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (4).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams has lost in the first round of her 24th appearance at the All England Club. Williams fell to the ground […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":313528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313535,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313524\/revisions\/313535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/313528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}