By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Serena Williams' withdrawal from the China Open closes the curtain on her 2018 season that saw her reach to Grand Slam finals, but fall short of a major milestone.
Photo credit: @US Open
Serena Williams has closed the curtain on her season.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion has withdrawn from next week's China Open in Beijing, according to Omnisport.
More: Serena Disputes Mouratoglou on Coaching Claim
The 16th-ranked Williams, who turns 37 today, concludes 2018 with an 18-6 record, including reaching the Wimbledon and US Open finals.
Williams' clash with chair umpire Carlos Ramos in the US Open final when a seething Serena berated Ramos as "a thief" and demanded an apology during her straight-sets loss to Naomi Osaka brought an ignominious end to a season where she registered her 800th career victory.
It was a brief and eventful season for Serena, who returned from maternity leave in March at Indian Wells where she fell to older sister Venus and candidly confessed she had not even "scratched the surface" of where she wanted
Williams fell short in her quest to equal Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles when she bowed to Angelique Kerber in the Wimbledon final before bowing in th controversial conclusion to the Flushing Meadows final.
Veteran chair umpire Carlos called Williams' coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, for illegally coaching from the stands during Osaka's sweep of the six-time US Open champion. Mouratoglou later admitted he had tried to coach Williams.
The American incurred a point penalty after smashing her racquet in the second set then berated Ramos as "a thief" who "stole" a point from her prompting the chair umpire to dock Williams a game, which gave Osaka a 5-3 second-set lead.
Williams, who continuously demanded an apology from Ramos, declined to shake his hand after the match reiterating her request for an apology.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion told Australian television show The Sunday Project, Mouratoglou's coaching confession makes no sense because, she says, the pair have never used hand signals.
“I just don’t understand what [Mouratoglou] was talking about because I asked him, you weren’t coaching, we don’t have signals, we’ve never had signals and he said he made a motion,” Williams told The Sunday Project. “So you said you made a motion, now you told people that you’re coaching me. That doesn’t make sense, why would you say that?”
Serena has said her goal is to eclipse Court's all-time record by winning 25 Grand Slam titles. She can take another shot at tying the record at the Australian Open in January.
Williams is a seven-time Australian Open champion, who owns an 81-10 record in Melbourne.