PARIS, France (AFP) — Serena Williams announced her shock withdrawal from the French Open through injury yesterday just minutes before her scheduled fourth-round clash against long-time bitter rival and fellow Grand Slam icon Maria Sharapova.

The 36-year-old said she had suffered a pectoral muscle injury in her third-round win over Julia Goerges and “can’t serve at all”.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion added that she would stay in Paris for a Tuesday scan on the injury.

“I unfortunately have been having some issues with my pec muscle, and [it] has been getting worse to the point where right now I can’t actually serve,” she explained.

She was unable to say whether or not she would be fit for Wimbledon, which gets underway in four weeks’ time.

“I’m beyond disappointed,” added three-time Roland Garros champion Williams, who was playing in her first Grand Slam since winning the 2017 Australian Open while two months pregnant.

She was also in just her third tournament of the year after giving birth to daughter Olympia in September.

Williams, whose absence from the sport has seen her ranking tumbling to 451, has not lost to the Russian since 2004, winning their last 18 matches.

It had been the most eagerly awaited match of the tournament, coming just two days after Williams had blasted Sharapova’s autobiography for being “100 per cent hearsay” when it came to references about her.

“I think Serena hated me for being the skinny kid who beat her, against all odds, at Wimbledon,” Sharapova wrote in Unstoppable.

Sharapova, the champion in Paris in 2012 and 2014, goes on to play a first quarter-final at the Slams since losing to Williams at the same stage at the 2016 Australian Open.

It was in Melbourne that Sharapova tested positive for meldonium, after which she served a 15-month doping ban.

World number one Simona Halep, twice a runner-up, needed less than an hour to make the last-eight for the third time with a 6-2, 6-1 rout of Belgium’s Elise Mertens.

Halep next faces 12th seed Angelique Kerber.

The German, a former world number one and two-time major winner, reached the quarter-finals for the second time with a 6-2, 6-3 win over France’s Caroline Garcia.

Australian Open champion and second seed Caroline Wozniacki was knocked out by Russia’s Daria Kasatkina 7-6 (7/5), 6-3.

Kasatkina will be playing in her first Slam quarter-final in which she will face US Open champion Sloane Stephens.