ChandaWatch: Our Hero’s chances at a medal just improved greatly. It seems that Serena Williams, hours before she was to board a flight to Athens, backed out, claiming “lingering knee pain.”

That means Serena’s singles spot will be wasted — the deadline for replacing members of your Olympic team has passed, so Aussie Samantha Stosur will get the spot. But Serena had planned to pair with sister Venus as the top American doubles team. (They won the gold in Sydney.) So now Venus’ new doubles partner will be…Chanda Rubin!

This is excellent news on a few fronts. One, obviously Venus is a hell of a doubles partner. Two, when you’ve got an achy knee (as Chanda has had since January), doubles play is a much better fit than singles — much less lateral movement, much heavier reliance on upper-body reflexes. And Chanda’s a heck of a doubles player herself — her only Grand Slam title to date remains winning the Australian Open in doubles a few years back. So while her singles campaign probably doesn’t have much of a chance, we may see Chanda on the medals stand yet.

11 August 2004

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