Williams was responding to questions on Saturday after pictures emerged of her appearing to be in discomfort during a practice session in Melbourne.
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Competition begins Monday (or Sunday night, U.S. time) in the year’s first major international tennis tournament. Williams opens against a tricky opponent, Italian Camila Giorgi, scheduled to begin about 9 p.m. ET Sunday.
A 21-time Grand Slam champion, Williams had limited preparation because of a sore knee that forced her to withdraw from last week’s Hopman Cup competition.
Williams, though, said she is ready to go.
“I’m a little tired today. I’ve been working so hard and doing so much work,” Williams said. “Maybe I had a bad attitude out there.
“This week, the weeks leading up, has been a lot of work. I actually wanted to have an easy day today. But to me in my mind ’easy’ is just two hours of really intense working out.”
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Pressed on the sore knee and whether inflammation might be a problem, Williams said: “It’s actually really fine. I don’t have any inflammation anymore. It’s just that I just needed some time to get over that little hump.
“I’ve been doing a lot of, lot of, lot of training leading up to this. But I’m totally — I don’t think I would need surgery at all.”
Giorgi is the highest-ranked unseeded player in the draw at 35.
“I always seem to have a tough draw, so it’s fine. It doesn’t matter who I play,” Williams said. “At some point you have to play everyone. You know, that’s how it always works out. So that’s what it is.”
