ZHUHAI, China: Tennis legend Steffi Graf said Sunday that Serena Williams can “absolutely” break Margaret Court’s Grand Slam singles title record if she returns to tennis.
Former world number one Serena Williams, who gave birth earlier this year, has already overtaken Graf with 23 Grand Slam wins but is yet to surpass Court, who boasts 24 major titles.
“Absolutely, yes,” Graf said when asked if the record was within Williams’ reach.
Court is renowned as the most successful player in Grand Slam history — the only player to win 10 or more titles of a single Slam — lifting the Australian Open a staggering 11 times between 1960 and 1973.
Graf, who also has 22 Grand Slam singles titles under her belt and is famed for having spent 377 weeks ranked world number one, was speaking in Zhuhai, China, where she is ambassador for the WTA Elite Trophy tournament.
“A lot of it is determined on her drive and if that’s what she wants to do,” she said of Williams.
Australian Open organizers said in October they were hopeful of a stunning return by Williams in January as they raised the winners’ prize money to a bumper A$4 million.
Williams won this year’s Australian Open while pregnant, and she has spoken of her “outrageous” plans to play in Melbourne in 2018 — just four-and-a-half months after giving birth to her baby girl.
“It sounds from what I hear that she’s looking to come back to tennis,” Graf added.
“You know, everything that she has shown over her career just makes you believe that if she has that in her sights then she will go after it and achieve it.”
The $2 million Elite Trophy features 12 players ranked from around nine to 20.
This week saw US Open winner Sloane Stephens crash out of the tournament in the round robin stage after losing her first match to Latvian Anastasija Sevastova and retiring from her second to Czech Barbora Strycova after just five games.
America’s CoCo. Vandeweghe is set to face Germany’s Julia Goerges in the final on Sunday.
Serena Williams can ‘absolutely’ break Court’s Grand Slam record, says tennis legend Graf
Serena Williams can ‘absolutely’ break Court’s Grand Slam record, says tennis legend Graf
Aston Martin says its car risks giving drivers ‘nerve damage’ and can’t finish F1 season-opener
- Aston Martin has predicted it is unlikely to finish Formula 1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix without its drivers risking suffering permanent nerve damage
MELBOURNE: Aston Martin has predicted it is unlikely to finish Formula 1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday without its drivers risking suffering permanent nerve damage.
Adrian Newey, the F1 car design great who’s heading into his first race as Aston Martin’s team principal, said Thursday the team’s Honda power unit causes vibrations which could damage the hands of drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Neither will likely be able to tolerate even half of the 58-lap race distance, Newey added.
Aston Martin had a poor preseason, often slower even than new team Cadillac and it logged the fewest laps of all 11 teams.
“That vibration (transmitted from Honda’s power unit) into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems,” said Newey.
“Mirrors falling off the air, tail lights falling off, that sort of thing, which we are having to address. But, the much more significant problem with that is that that vibration is transmitted ultimately into the driver’s fingers.
“So Fernando is of the feeling that he can’t do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage into his hands. Lance is of the opinion that he can’t do more than 15 laps before that threshold.
“We are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race until we get on top of the source of the vibration — and to improve the vibration at source.”
Despite the long list of issues, Newey says the AMR26 car has tremendous potential as F1 starts a new era of regulations.
He argued the chassis is F1’s fifth-best behind the expected top-teams Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull and that, following an aggressive development program, has the potential to run at the front at some point in 2026.
Alonso, though, is keeping the faith until Friday practice in Melbourne, where he believes fixes on the car might provide a sunnier outlook.
“For us, it’s just vibrating everything,” the two-time F1 champion said.
“But it’s not only for us. The car is struggling a little bit, so that’s why we have some issues, some reliability problems that made our days slightly short.
“Since (pre-season testing in) Bahrain, there were a couple of tests done and some of the solutions are implemented on the car now, so (I’m) curious to see what (happens) tomorrow (and) if we can improve.”
Its disappointing performance has been variously attributed to a compressed design time due to late arrival; Honda’s need to rebuild its research and development capabilities after leaving Red Bull, the challenge of producing a new in-house gearbox, and the team running a so-far unproven fuels partner in Aramco.
But it’s the side effects that will likely sideline its cars early in Sunday’s race at Albert Park.
