By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, March 25, 2015

 

Serena Williams met the media in Miami today and said she has practiced and plans to launch defense of her Miami title on Friday night against Monica Niculescu.

Photo credit: @MiamiOpen

Serena Williams put her cranky right knee to the test in a practice session on her home turf today.

The world No. 1 reports she's still feeling knee pain, but that won't prevent her from playing the Miami Open.

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“I just am trying to stay out of as much pain as possible and see what happens,” Williams told the media in Miami. “I don’t want to put too much pressure on it before. But it’s Miami, so I’m just going to go for it and see what happens.”

The seven-time Miami Open champion will launch defense of her title against Monica Niculescu at Crandon Park on Friday night. Williams also faced the tricky Romanian spin doctor in her Indian Wells' opener, scoring a 7-5, 7-5, victory.

Knee pain prompted the top seed to pull the plug on her Indian Wells comeback and concede a walkover to Simona Halep in last week's semifinals. William said she will manage the pain.

"It's okay. I know I'm going to have to manage the pain," Williams said in her press conference. "I think if I'm in that mental state, okay, you might be in a little pain. You just have to figure out the best way around it."

A year ago, the Miami Dolpins co-owner was wearing the aqua and green colors of her team — and the Miami Hurricanes — when she defeated Maria Sharapova and Li Na in succession to become the oldest champion in tournament history.

The 33-year-old Williams says she isn't tempering her goals for the tournament she's dominated.

"Well, I definitely don't have low expectations," Williams said when asked her goal for the tournament. "I just definitely expect to do the best that I can.  Whether that's winning or just stepping out on the court, that's what I'm going to have to do. Again, I don't feel any pressure because I have won this title a few times, so I feel good about being here."

The 19-time Grand Slam champion said she took an anti-inflammation injection in Indian Wells last week "to try to calm down all the inflammation."

Williams said playing with some degree of pain is part of the job.

"I think every player has pain. I said this before. I don't know any player that goes out there without pain," Williams said. "Every match I play, I mean, I could be 10 percent in pain or I could be 80 percent in pain. It just kind of depends how you feel and how can you manage that. Knowing ahead of time the problems that you're dealing with, usually you have a good way. Okay, we're dealing with this problem and this is how you treat it, so you can be able to play at a high level.

"Now that I kind of know what's going on, I'm able to treat it and be able to play at a higher level than I would have been able to play a couple of weeks ago."