Williams rests knee for French Open

Originally published on: 26/02/10 12:28

Williams, seeded second here behind Dinara Safina, made the decision to pull out after losing the first set of her match against Francesca Schiavone 6-4. The 27-year-old American said the problem had been bothering her for a few weeks but should not affect her participation at the upcoming French Open.

“No, it’s not going to stop me from playing in Paris,” said Williams.

She added: “I didn’t want to risk my chances to play Roland Garros. I wanted to do well (here), but at the end of the day I’m trying to play Paris and still trying to play singles and doubles there so I didn’t really want to take that chance and be out of Roland Garros.

“My movement was hindered. I don’t know how serious it is but I don’t want it to get worse. Obviously there’s a major grand slam coming up.”

There were few other big-name casualties in either the men’s or women’s events at the Madrid Open.

Former world number one Marat Safin tumbled out, but he was the underdog going into his match against ninth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Russian Safin, who lost 6-4 7-5 to the Frenchman, is set to retire at the end of the year and he admits the last thing he wants to do is go out with a whimper.

He said: “I don’t want to be struggling around, I don’t want to be one of those old guys who are on the tour, 30 years old and just can’t win any matches.”

Aside from Tsonga, the two other men’s seeds in action at La Caja Magica were also successful, with number 11 Stanislas Wawrinka crushing qualifier Marco Crugnola 6-2 6-0 and number 12 David Ferrer beating Guillermo Canas 6-2 6-2.

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