Venus Williams has been a seven-time Grand Slam champion and has a productive career in tennis. She was ranked number two in the world during the year 2010, and in the double circuit, she was at the top.
Her career was going good enough but she suffered from so many injuries that insisted on her to retire herself. Due to hip injury, she pulled out from The French Open in 2011 and marked the first Grand Slam absence since the 2003 US Open.
At the North American hard-court session, she featured herself. Venus was diagnosed with a career-threatening disease before she could play her second-round match at the US Open 2011.
She was suffering from an autoimmune disease named as Sjogren’s Syndrome. This disease causes muscle, joint pain and fatigue. She has also suffered from shortness of breath. All of these things has put her in dilemma to take a break from her career in 2011.
The time, when she was recovering for challenging for her. She was losing her hopes to return to the circuit as her symptoms were deteriorating day by day. She felt being on the brink of her career.
She said in an interview that, “No matter how hard I worked, I was exhausted, short of breath, and never felt in shape. It was really frustrating.”
She also said about her worst time, “My symptoms got progressively worse, to the point where I couldn’t play professional tennis anymore. Unfortunately, that’s typical of people with autoimmune disease.”
She said about her condition when she was injured, “They’re misdiagnosed or too sick to function. I literally had professional tennis taken away from me before I got the right diagnosis. So you can imagine, it has definitely affected my game. I felt out of control.”
After all her thoughts about positivity, patience and good treatment helped her from recovering from the nerve-wrenching syndrome.
She resumed her career in 2012 on WTA Tour. In London, she clinched a gold medal in the doubles with her sister Serena Williams during the Summer Olympics 2012.
