Venus Williams, who earlier this week withdrew her bid for a third U.S. Open crown, weakened by fatigue-inducing Sjogren’s syndrome, her sister, Serena, and Tiger Woods are inextricably and historically bound together — forever.
The three African-Americans — Ok, two, Tiger told us and Oprah years ago that he’s Cablanasian — did the unheard of in the late 1990s and the early 21st century when they almost simultaneously commandeered the country club sports of tennis and golf, leaving their respective fingerprints all over the games that for so long have been for blacks the sporting world’s version of forbidden fruit.
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Despite his recent struggles, Woods, 35, has won 14 majors, second only to Jack Nicklaus (18). And his 71 wins on the PGA rank him third behind Nicklaus and all-time leader Sam Snead (82). He hasn’t won a tourney since the 2008 U.S. Open, where he further embellished his legacy by beating Rocco Mediate on the first hole of a sudden death playoff. This he accomplished on a left knee that required surgery.
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The dalliances that ruined his personal life notwithstanding, Woods is so good that in a down year — he won no majors in 2010 — he was still the highest paid professional athlete on the planet ($90.5 million in winnings and endorsements).
Serena, 29, has, as father Richard Williams predicted years ago, had a superior career to her sister. Serena ranks sixth all-time with 13 Grand Slam titles. After missing nearly a year due to some serious health issues, she is on fire again, having overwhelmed Michaella Krajicek 6-0, 6-1 in the second round of the U.S. Open on Thursday. She’s won 14 matches in a row and 29 of her last 30 on hard court.
Venus, 31, doesn’t have her sister’s cache, but with seven grand slams to her credit she’s already had a hall-of-fame career.
Great as they are, their recent setbacks — injures and health in the case of the Williams sisters; self-infliction in Woods’ case — are signs that the curtain will soon be coming down on their careers, the only question is which one will take his or her bow first. Of the three, only Serena has yet to cross that dreaded barrier — age 30, where she arrives later this month — at which the body begins to break down and betray athletes.
Interestingly enough, it still could be Woods, the oldest of the three, primarily because golf doesn’t age you as quickly as does Tennis. Despite the off-base speculation that often crops up in the mainstream media that Woods may have experimented with performance enhancing drugs because of his affiliation with a Dr. Anthony Galea, an admitted steroid smuggler, Woods has never been implicated.
Woods isn’t getting any younger, but no one in their right mind should have expected Woods to continue winning majors at the pace he once won them. Right now, Wood’s biggest question mark isn’t what his body has left; golfers have won majors at much later stages in their career’s than this.
He’s got to somehow find a way to regain the laser-like focus that set him apart from the golfers who used to wet the bed at night thinking about the prospect of being paired up with him over the weekend. He says that Michael Jordan is his idol. Ironically, Jordan, like Woods, lost his father, his closest friend and confidante, and still thereafter won titles while playing a much more physically demanding sport, albeit a team game. Can Woods do the same?
Unlike Woods, the Williams sisters have never been portrayed as killers. Rather, they have been castigated by the people who cover them on a regular basis for having lives and interests outside of tennis.
There may be some truth to this, but much of this arbitrary speculation is because the Williams girls, raised in Compton, have enjoyed their time spent at South Beach frolicking in bikinis for the paparazzi with the same vigor that they have dispatched much of their blue-blooded opposition.
Don’t for one minute be lured into thinking that they haven’t been just as focused on being the best at their sport as, say, Maria Sharapova, winner of three Grand Slams.
That said, their clocks are ticking much louder than Woods’. Venus, it turns out, has been battling her condition for years. She still vows to return to tennis in the near future, but first she’s got to take care of her health issues — hopefully she will do that this winter — and we’ll see what she has left. She has, however, never been the athletic force that her sister is.
Gregarious and free-wheeling — and not afraid to give a line judge a piece of her mind — Serena is still nine grand slams shy of Steffi Graff’s all-time mark (22). Her physical gifts have always been her trump card. You never know when the body will fail you — at 46 Bernard Hopkins this year became the oldest fighter to win a world championship when he lifted Jean Pascal’s light heavyweight crown — but if she stays healthy she could remain the best athlete in the sport for the next few years.
Either way, they are winding down. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the ride, and hopefully there will be more spectacular moments for all three. But make no mistake about it; we’ve seen the best of them already.