After days of rumors and speculations, Serena Williams has withdrawn from the doubles draw at Wimbledon. This means that her sister Venus Williams will also have to pull out, which will see the duo of Solana Sierra and Camila Osorio advance into the second round. Serena shared a worrisome injury update as she announced her withdrawal from the event.

“I’m heartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “Coming back to compete again has been a gift, and the opportunity to play alongside @venuswilliams once more meant the world to me. I did everything I could to be ready, but unfortunately my knee just isn’t ready to compete.”

It had previously been revealed that Serena had sustained a knee injury during her singles clash against Maya Joint earlier this week. Though the 44-year-old had a handful of days to recover from the issue, she eventually couldn’t do so.

Many fans had suspected the seriousness of the injury at first as Serena didn’t appear to be in discomfort during the match. But she has herself has now showed that the injury wasn’t made up. She can be seen wearing bandaging on her left knee in one of the pictures that she shared. She also shared a picture of four syringes that were used to drain fluid out of her knee after the match against Joint.

“The photo of the syringes shows the fluid they drained from my knee after my singles match…yikes! The good news is my knee shouldn’t swell or collect that much fluid again. The bad news is that, as hard as I tried, I just wasn’t able to get it ready for doubles,” she added.

Though this injury might be a hit to morale, Serena appears to be confident about her chances of getting back into action soon. Fans will definitely be hoping to see more of her in the upcoming hard-court season.

“Thank you to the fans for your incredible support and for making this comeback so meaningful…All I can say is stay tuned to a city near you,” she further wrote in the post.

It’s not a surprise that Serena ended up picking up a physical setback during her loss to Joint. She had put in a solid effort in the 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 defeat and had provided her 20-year-old opponent with quite a challenge. Despite not being very strong on her serve, Serena managed to gain three breaks over Joint during the match and had a tally of 11 break points in total, the same as Joint.

Seeing her perform well in singles, many were excited about Serena playing alongside Venus for the first time in 10 years at the SW19. But it hasn’t ended up materializing and fans will have to wait to see the 44-year-old back on the court again.

This withdrawal also means that Venus’ Wimbledon campaign has also come to an end. She had gained a wildcard for both the women’s and mixed doubles draw for the tournament. The 46-year-old had formed a player with Kevin Krawietz for the mixed doubles draw, but the two ended up losing 6-4, 6-4 in the first-round clash against Lloyd Glasspool and Tereza Mihalikova.

But The All England Club may not be done with Venus just yet as she can face a hefty fine for breaking the same rule that Serena did earlier in the tournament.

Venus Williams may face a fine $50,000 at Wimbledon

Having gotten eliminated from the first-round of the mixed doubles, Venus and Krawietz will be earning approximately $6,945, which will get divided among the two.

But the former World No. 1 might now have to pay a hefty fine of £37,000 ($50,000) for unexpectedly skipping the press conference after her defeat in the mixed doubles.

According to Grand Slam rules, players must attend post-match media duties within a reasonable time frame unless excused on medical or other reasonable grounds, at the discretion of the supervisors.

Notably, Serena had also broken the same rule after her match against Joint. But she had escaped the fine because of providing clarity over her condition at the right time. Wimbledon was satisfied with her statement and decided to not fine her.

But Venus may not be that lucky as she didn’t provide any reason to the tournament officials behind her absence from the press conference. Though the All England Club are yet to provide an official statement on the matter, there are chances that the fine will be implemented on Venus.