Venus, Redux

Sadly, Venus Williams had to retire from her match this morning at the Australian Open after re-injuring a muscle in her side. She is always competitive and I believe this is the first time she has ever retired from a match.

For me, tho, the second sadness in her retirement is that we only got three days of new tennis dresses from her. The press was buzzing from the first day, and now we can be, also.

Day 1 she appeared in the most talked-about dress... er tunic. It's a lovely shade of blue and the fabric is alternating "stripes" of net and fabric, so that it looks like stripes in this picture. The real issue was the length... very, very short. Actually it barely covered her black spanky pants - remember them from high school? She told reporters that she initially planned to wear flesh-colored, which would have caused even more comment. I love the fabric, but doubt that I would have tried this look - even at my target weight! With her good figure she looked good in this and I rather liked it.

Day 2 she changed to an edgy yellow number. The lattice work in the bodice appears to be open-work with no netting. I really like that part. What I think doesn't work well is the patterned skirt. The black print is fine, but there doesn't appear to be any yellow in the print that matches the bodice. The tennis ball in the front - nice touch! - is too green. If that matched, or with a matching solid yellow (or solid black) skirt, this would really be a neat dress. And, it's long enough to please almost anyone.

Then today she chose my favorite of the week. The black bodice is alternating stripes of solid black fabric and a great silver-studded black. It's worn over matching black shorts that give "good coverage". It's the sort of tennis "costume" that has started showing up at evening matches at the U.S. Open. If she wears it again, she may get comments about the silver-studded band that runs across her breasts - it's a bit Madonna-like, but overall I do like it a lot.

If Venus were just about clothing, and not a top notch player, I probably wouldn't comment on her outfits, but she is first and foremost a fine athlete and after 17 years as a professional tennis player still rated as one of the finest players of the open era. So, bear with me. If she keeps wearing interesting things, I plan to keep commenting. Perhaps that is my niche in blogger-dom!

Besides it must be warm somewhere if they are playing tennis!