NEW YORK — Four years ago, Venus Williams pulled out of the U.S. Open before a second-round match and announced she had been suffering for years from the symptoms of Sjögren’s syndrome, an energy-sapping autoimmune disorder.
She wouldn’t return to the WTA Tour for nearly seven months, and it could have been longer if not for one source of motivation.
“That’s all I want now, to be an Olympian again,” Williams said at the 2012 French Open, according to The New York Times. “If not for the Olympics, I would probably have come back around now [in May 2012 rather than in March 2012].