Venus Williams revealed she is suffering from an auto-immune disease
Wednesday in New York
The walking wounded
It may be something in the air, the water, the burgers. Even a bizarre aftermath of Irene, if you will. But this year’s US Open has not been kind on the health front. Venus Williams last night became the latest player to join the mass visits to the medical centre, withdrawing ahead of her second round match against Sabine Lisicki and disclosing that she has been suffering from Sjögren’s Syndrome, an autoimmune disease that causes extreme fatigue and joint pain. Not good.
Hours earlier, Robin Soderling had done pretty much the same, citing illness.
Add to that the retirements of Yanina Wickmayer (body had enough), Louk Sorensen (cramps), Conor Niland (food poisioning), Jamie Hampton (cramps), Kei Nishikori, Ayumi Morita (shoulder), Misaki Doi, Frank Dancevic, Karol Beck, Marinko Matosevic, and the physios and doctors on site at Flushing have certainly been kept busy.
It’s a horrible time of the year, that’s for sure. Those hard courts are not exactly like cushions.
Far more importantly though, it raises severe questions about Venus’s future. Is it the beginning of the end? She doesn’t think so.
“We’ve decided to just enjoy tennis,” she said earlier this week. “It’s such an honor. We’ll do it as long as we can. Right now the end is not really in sight.”
I do hope so. Get well soon, V.
Men in red, green and black
Two men in adidas red produced two very different performances yesterday. Andy Murray crunched his way to an at times tricky, but ultimately extremely positive three-set win over Somdev Devvarman, while Marcos Baghdatis bumped and pumped but came up short against John Isner in four sets.
In a way it was the perfect first round match for Murray (and I like the red, by the way) – not too easy, not too hard. Robin Haase is next.
For Baghdatis, it proved that the now ponytail-less Cypriot still has plenty to bring to a tennis court. Yelling to the New York skies as he walloped and whacked, the much trimmer Bag-man had John Isner on every inch of his toes for two tie-breaks, won the third set, before squeezing the wrong way out of the fourth. Credit to Isner, but he needs to think about those 61 unforced errors.
An ugly grind
It seems to be a rather fashionable argument that there is not much time left on the tennis court for Andy Roddick. The original A-Rod is lacking form and results, and is dragging around a body that would much rather be on a beach in the Bahamas. But it’s not over yet. The 2003 champion survived a first round four-setter in over four hours against Michael ‘muscle’ Russell. Google him and you’ll see why.
Over and out
Bye bye, Bryans. The chest-bumping twins, who have owned New York, looked less than godly as they suffered a shock defeat in the first round, as the Wimbledon champions no less, to the lowly likes of Ivo Karlovic and Frank Moser. Human after all?
There were untimely exits also for Marion Bartoli against her lookalike Christina McHale (into her first Grand Slam third round), and Aga Radwanska, who peaked three weeks ago instead of this week.
Passing through
Maria Sharapova may have been a little grumpy at getting onto Arthur Ashe at past 11pm. And so she didn’t hang around, dropping just two games to screech into round three. Scary. Also cruising along were Sam Stosur, Juan Martin Del Potro, Julien Benneteau, and Vera Zvonareva, albeit not in cruisy fashion.
Stat attack
1
30 year-olds left in the women’s draw. Following Venus’s withdrawal, Francesca Schiavone is on her own.
Soundbite
“It’s the only thing I know where you can break your own stuff and get penalized for it, you know. If you take your shoe and throw it and break it, what happens to you? You’re out of a shoe, but it doesn’t really affect anyone else. If you’re hurting someone, or someone is in harm’s way, you know, I think if you took a poll of who would want to see someone go mental and hit something into the stands or something, I mean, people would probably vote for that. I said in Cincinnati, there’s a reason that Monday Night Raw gets better ratings than we do.”
Andy Roddick on why we should all get a little angry. Erm, ok.
Name check
Irina Falconi. Anyone else thinking of Batman? The young American dumped out 14th seed Dominika Cibulkova.
Back-pat
Speaking of young guns, a little retrospective praise for Laura Robson. She may have been short of a game or few against Anabel Medina Garrigues yesterday, but still. A second consecutive Grand Slam second round (and making it through qualifying for the first time), for a 17 year-old who can still get so much better. As a friend and I were discussing, a few weeks ago, who would have thunk? Well done Robbo. More to come.
Tweet of the day
“In the lockerroom getting relationship advise from Serena and Venus. = #trouble “
@CaroWozniacki. Just, scary.
Coming up this evening…
Marin Cilic v Bernard Tomic
Remember when Bernard Tomic complained about being kept up past his bedtime? Well it was Mr Cilic that forced him to do so, the pair contesting a tense five-setter at the Australian Open in 2010. Cilic won that one in five, but a lot has changed since then. The 21 year-old, once seen by many as a future Slam champ, has been in a win-less hole for a while, while Tomic, who has guile oozing from every swing of his bat, made his first Grand Slam quarter-final at Wimbledon. Still, anything can happen.
Elena Baltacha v Svetlana Kuznetsova
I watched these two play against each other in Eastbourne a couple of years ago, and mainly remember a lot of Russian exclamations from both ends of the court. More of the same tonight, no doubt. Bally has a chance.
Caroline Wozniack v Aranxta Rus
Why this one? I’m not quite sure. It just caught my eye. Rus can hit the ball, that’s for sure, and could be a handful. Plus it will give us a chance to see if Caro’s incognito coach has made any difference yet.
Also in action
Roger Federer (v Dudi Sela), Novak Djokovic (v Carlos Berlocq), Gael Monfils (v Juan Carlos Ferrero), Richard Gasquet (v Ivo Karlovic), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (v Sergei Bubka Jr, Vika Azarenka’s current beau), Serena Williams (v Michaella Krajicek), Ana Ivanovic (v Petra Cetkovska), Victoria Azarenka (v Gisela Dulko).
Who knew?
Jack Sock, the young American who earned his wild card into the main draw after winning the Kalamazoo play-offs, won his first-round match against Marc Gicquel without his long-term coach in his box. Why? He’s afraid of flying.
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