Serena: I'm so lucky to be alive (From The Argus)

Serena: I'm so lucky to be alive

10:00am Tuesday 14th June 2011 in Sport By Andy Naylor

Serena Williams returns to tennis at Eastbourne today, just three months after she was on her “deathbed”.

The four-time Wimbledon champion has revealed how physio Esther Lee saved her career, and possibly her life, by forcing her to go to hospital instead of partying.

Williams is back in action in the first round of the AEGON International against Bulgarian Tsevtana Pironkova.

Tennis was the last thing on her mind when in March, while still recovering from eight months out with a badly gashed foot, she was diagnosed with a blood clot on her lung and needed emergency surgery.

The American said: “I was literally on my deathbed at one point. The doctors said I had several clots, in both lungs. A lot of people die from that because you don’t recognise it."

Read the full story plus all the action from Eastbourne in The Argus today