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We could all use the kind of R&R Venus Williams got in her six-month hiatus from pro tennis. Between a three-set loss to Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario in the French Open quarterfinals and a three-set loss to Lindsay Davenport at a tournament in Austria in October, Williams won 35 straight matches and six straight titles, including two Olympic gold medals and her first two Grand Slams, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. While some cited her sister Serena's U.S. Open victory last September and first ever win over Venus a month later (call it Venus envy) for Venus's apparent ennui, Williams would only say that tendinitis in both wrists is what caused her to miss the first four months of the 2000 season. In March her father, Richard, claimed Venus was poised to retire to pursue a career in fashion design, something Venus later denied. She avenged her loss to Serena at the All England Club, where she had to beat Martina Hingis, Serena, and Davenport in succession to become the first black woman to win Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1958.
--Jamal Greene
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