Venus Williams withdraws from next week's Wuhan Open

WATCH—Maria Sharapova will sit the rest of the 2018 season:

Venus Williams will not play next week's WTA event at Wuhan, citing physical issues.

The 38-year-old won the tournament in 2015.

"I'm really disappointed because it's such a great tournament. At this stage of my career though, I have to listen to my body and unfortunately sometimes that means taking tough decisions like this," Williams said.

An eight-time Grand Slam champion, Williams has slipped this season. She has not reached the semifinals since Indian Wells, where she got a win against younger sister Serena Williams before losing to Daria Kasatkina.

At the US Open, Venus did beat Svetlana Kuznetsova and Camila Giorgi, but in the third round, Serena crushed her 6-1, 6-2.

Venus's coach, David Witt, mentioned during the tournament that she had been having knee and elbow problems.

It is not apparent whether No. 21-ranked Venus will play any of the Asian events coming up. The same goes with No. 16 Serena, who rarely plays during this period of the season. Even if they do, they may not qualify for the WTA Finals in Singapore.

In Wuhan next week, five wild cards have been given—Victoria Azarenka, Qiang Wang, Bernarda Pera, Samantha Stosur and Saisai Zheng were all offered a spot in the tournament.