Tennis great, Serena Williams has pulled out of the French Open before her fourth-round match with Russia’s Maria Sharapova because of an injury that affected her serve in the previous round.

The 23-time Grand Slam winner recently returned to tennis after giving birth to her first child and looked like she was in good form in her opening matches.

“I’ve had issues with the right pectoral muscle to the point where I can’t serve. I’ll have a scan. I won’t know about Wimbledon until I get the results,” said the 36-year-old Serena.

Although she played in a doubles match with her sister, Venus on Sunday, Williams said she first felt the problem during her third-round win over German 11th seed, Julia Gorges on Saturday, adding that she had wanted to try to manage the problem before her match with Sharapova.

“I tried lots of taping and support to see how it felt in match circumstances,” Williams said. It is hard to play when I can’t physically serve. I’ve never had this injury before, I’ve never felt it in my life and it was so painful. I don’t know how to manage it,” she added.

Williams said she would have an MRI scan in Paris on Tuesday and would stay in the French capital, at least until the extent of her injury was clear.

Sharapova however said she was disappointed that Williams had to pull out as she had been looking forward to playing Williams once again.

“I wish her a speedy recovery and hope she returns to the tour soon,” Sharapova added.

The 31-year-old Russian, a two-time winner at Roland Garros, will now play either Spain’s 2016 champion, Garbine Muguruza or Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko in the last eight.

The possibility of Williams facing Sharapova had been grabbing global attention since the draw was made 10 days ago as the meeting of the two former champions, both making comebacks at Roland Garros this year was set up when Williams beat Gorges shortly after Sharapova beat Czech sixth seed Karolina Pliskova.

Williams  recently returned after giving birth to daughter, Olympia in September, while the 28th-seeded Sharapova came back in the draw after being refused a wildcard last year after returning from a 15-month drugs ban.

The pair have had a frosty relationship since they first met on court in 2003 but there has not been much of a rivalry on court in recent years, with Williams having won 19 of their 21 meetings. Both of Sharapova’s wins came in 2004 – including a win in that year’s Wimbledon final.

Tuesday’s MRI scan will reveal more, but if there is no serious damage, then the Wimbledon Open may still be very much within Williams’ sights as there are still four weeks to go, and not being able to play a grass-court warm-up event beforehand should not be a concern.