We’ve already selected the next Splat-ter of the Week, thanks to the excellent nominations we received. The new honoree will be revealed on Friday. But in the meantime, we’d be remiss if we overlooked Venus Williams’s first-round defeat at Wimbledon, a major, high-viz sports splat.
(By contrast, we are intentionally ignoring Greece’s loss to Germany in the World Cup last week. We frankly saw it coming. We probably aren't the first to observe this is one more big whiff by Greece in a situation where a payback was required.)
In the fall of 2011, Venus –we’re on a first-name basis with her, since she struggles with the burdens of tennis fame like we do (don't believe us? click here)-- was sidelined by an autoimmune disorder called Sjogren’s Syndrome.
As a result of in-depth medical research conducted by the Splatospheric team (a 45-second visit to the Mayo Clinic website, 30 seconds of which were spent reading about scabies because it appeared first alphabetically and we couldn’t help ourselves), we understand that this condition causes the sufferer’s white blood cells to attack the body’s moisture-producing glands. Sjogren's apparently causes a host of unpleasant symptoms, the worst of which for an athlete are joint pain and fatigue.
But Venus was determined not to let this condition keep her down. In March, she returned to the courts and rose in rank from 134 to the mid 50s-- good enough to earn her a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. But a recent second round defeat at the French Open and yesterday’s first round loss at Wimbledon in two blowout sets have super-glued her to the wall.
At a post-match press conference yesterday, Williams claimed to have more good tennis in her. We hope she’s right. We’d like to return our focus to where it belongs: her appalling taste in clothing.
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