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‘Playing Through the Pain..’- Serena Williams Disclosed How a Traumatic Battle With an ‘Unseen’ Disease Badly Affected Her Winning Chances

Published 09/22/2022, 12:30 AM EDT

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via Reuters

Legendary American tennis star Serena Williams has suffered many injuries throughout her career, as most athletes do. However, one particular injury, or disease in particular, cost her from winning many titles and Grand Slams.

In an interview in 2020, Serena Williams talked about suffering from migraine since the age of 20. Because of this issue, she could not play to her full potential in many tournaments. Moreover, she could not discuss it publically, as it was not a physical injury.

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Serena Williams talked about her problems with migraine

In the interview, the 23-time Grand Slam champion said,Migraine isn’t a knee injury — it’s something you can’t physically see… You can’t really say, ‘Oh, Dad, I have a migraine. I’m going to stop playing’. People are like,’‘I don’t see swelling. I don’t see bruising. Tough it out’. I got used to playing through the pain.” 

via Reuters

She also declined to address her migraine problem many times during press conferences, as she did not want to give excuses for her defeats. You can’t go into a press conference with the media asking, ‘Well, what happened?’ and say, ‘Well I had a migraine attack’. I had to figure out a way to work through it,” she further said. 

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Notably, last year, Serena Williams suffered a hamstring injury at the Wimbledon Championships, which forced her out of the tennis court for almost a year. Other than that, Williams had a knee injury during the early stages of her career. Also, it is worth mentioning that Williams also had an issue with blood clots in her body and struggled with that during the birth of her daughter Olympia.

A look at Serena’s illustrious career

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Despite a lot of injuries, Williams arguably had one of the greatest tennis careers ever. Over the span of her career, she won plenty of accolades, including 23 Grand Slam titles, the second most in the history of tennis behind Margaret Court.

Watch This Story: Serena Williams sends love as Roger Federer hangs his tennis racket

Apart from that, she also won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles along with four Olympic Gold medals. Since making her professional debut in 1995, she dominated the sport for almost 20 years. She won her first Grand Slam title at the 1999 US Open at the age of 18 and her last Grand Slam title came in 2017 at the Australian Open.

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Although she did not match Margaret Court’s record, many still consider her to be the greatest of all time. Recently, Serena Williams said goodbye to tennis on her home turf at the US Open.

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Written by:

Debkinkar Maity

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Debkinkar Maity is a Tennis Author at EssentiallySports. His desire to become a sports journalist inspired him to take up a degree in journalism and mass communication, and he hasn't looked back ever since. Following the sport for over a decade now, Debkinkar has an ardent love for Roger Federer.
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Edited by:

Veer Badani