Venus Flubs Again

PARIS —  Venus Williams has left the arena.

Again.

Venus and Serena Williams, winners of the year’s first doubles Grand Slam at the Australian Open, won’t be taking a shot at the second. Venus was said to have been on an afternoon flight out of Paris on Wednesday. Serena said in a statement that she “wants to focus all my energy toward doing the best that I can in singles.”

Tour officials were quietly displeased by the move. To be fair, doubles are doubles. Other players have pulled out of doubles at Grand Slam events to concentrate on the singles event--Patrick Rafter at Wimbledon last year and Steffi Graf in mixed doubles with John McEnroe two years ago at Wimbledon.

This is slightly different. Serena plays in the second round today and seriously needs match play, as evidenced by her rusty showing in her opener against Sarah Pitkowski of France, a 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-1 victory Tuesday. The withdrawal is another in a series of perplexing moves by the Williams sisters since March, when Venus pulled out of a scheduled semifinal match at Indian Wells against Serena about five minutes beforehand because of a knee injury.

She played and won at the Ericsson Open in Miami, where her knee appeared much better. Venus kept her European clay-court season short, winning at Hamburg, Germany, and losing in the third round at Berlin to Justine Henin of Belgium.

Instead of doing everything she could to rebuild her credibility, Venus undercut it again by announcing in the middle of the Hamburg event she would not be playing in two weeks at the Italian Open because of a knee injury.

It would be like calling the office and saying, “I am not covering Wimbledon in a few weeks because of a sore right arm and pulled hamstring. They are fine now but they won’t be then.”

Silly, of course, but a way of life on the women’s tour. The WTA keeps issuing statements for the Williamses and it is more clear than ever the tour is unable to control them or anyone else. Martina Navratilova had said recently that the sisters were getting the “kid-glove” treatment.

It hurts the sport and, ultimately, the curious absences hurt Venus and Serena. The French Open is one of the glamour events of the year, and fans desperately want to see more of the Williams sisters, not less of them. NBC wouldn’t mind showing doubles if the Williamses are involved, as it did at Wimbledon last year.

Furthermore, Venus will be idle during the heart of the tennis season. She has not entered any pre-Wimbledon grass-court events in England. She may go into Wimbledon as the defending champion having played one singles match in seven weeks--the first-round loss here to Barbara Schett of Austria on Monday.

The topic of tournament preparation came up recently in a BBC radio round table with former Wimbledon champion Virginia Wade and former players Peter Fleming and Christine Truman. Wade emphatically agreed that a part-time approach to tennis before Grand Slam events was ridiculous.

But the final revealing word came Wednesday from, of all people, 18-year-old Andy Roddick. Roddick had played the match of his life in a five-set drama against Michael Chang, winning despite severe cramps in 3 hours 50 minutes.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if he said he was so sorry but he couldn’t envision playing doubles today with Jan-Michael Gambill.

But he brought it up without prompting and it showed why the men’s tour doesn’t have the messy baggage of the WTA.

“I’ll probably get pumped full of minerals, come out and play doubles, kind of get the body going again,” he said.

“I’m going to come out and give it my best.”