Serena Williams Withdraws From The US Open: A Timeline

Even as Serena's withdrawal makes it seemingly indisputable that she is actually unable to play, the way this injury revelation played out befuddles me significantly

It's been sort of tough for me to completely figure out the timeline, but I think this is the basic gist of how it all went down.  Some of the dates might be slightly off, but I tried to be as exact as I could:

1. June 29: After her elbow injury at Wimbledon, Justine pulled out of the extremely hyped "Best of Belgium," an exhibition match between Henin and Kim Clijsters at a soccer stadium in Brussels that was set to be the most attended tennis match of all time, surpassing the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.  With their huge investment jeopardized, the scrambling organizers of the exhibition convince Serena Williams to replace Henin (and by "convince" I mean offer her an obscene amount of money to play), and change the name to "Best of The World."
2. July 3: Serena Williams wins Wimbledon, her (unlucky?) thirteenth career slam singles title, thrashing Vera Zvonareva 6-3, 6-2 in the final.  Williams served 82 aces and lost zero sets on her way to the title.
3. Sometime after the Wimbledon Champions' Ball on July 4th  but before going to Belgium, Serena cuts her foot on a piece of glass at a restaurant during a World Cup viewing party in Munich.  This part of the story has to have be leaving out significant chunks, because as is it doesn't seem all that plausible.  None of the restaurants I've ever been to, even the ones in Germany, featured devastating amounts of broken glass on the floor.  Furthermore, one typically wears shoes at a restaurant, a convention even observed in Europe.  The only time I can think of at which one might possibly take off shoes in a public place where food was consumed would be if one was wearing impossibly high heels while on a dance floor.  It would also be a plausible place for there to be broken glass that would go unseen for a while in the dark.  Add that to the fact that Serena admitted to a previous dancing injury in her 2009 autobiography On The Line, and I think that's a pretty sound theory.
   
4. July 9: Since not playing in Brussels would mean forfeiting the aforementioned obscene amount of money, Serena decides to play.  But as this video clip shows, she was clearly not playing at 100%, or really moving at all.  But almost no one (in mainstream English tennis media, anyway) watched the match or reported on it. As if playing through the injury wasn't bad enough, Serena then had to pretend to get along with Justine Henin. 

5. July 12: Serena pulls out of the four World Team Tennis matches she had previously signed on to play for the Washington Kastles, citing the previously undisclosed glass-stepping incident.  Asked how she played Clijsters with the injury, Serena cited "those Belgian doctors and waffles." 
6. July 13: Serena pulls out of Cincinnati and Montreal (as well as Istanbul, which no one could possibly believe she was ever going to show up to). The WTA says Serena is questionable for the US Open, which surprises many and is seen perhaps as an attempt to give legitimacy to her withdrawals from the tour events.
7. July 14: Serena returns to Los Angeles for the ESPYs and a party she throws herself, at which several photos of her were taken that showed a tiny Band-Aid conspicuously on the front of her ankle.  Unless this was some oddly-formed, hook-shaped piece of broken glass, it's unlikely stepping on glass would hurt the front of the ankle.  The band-aid appeared to be entirely for show, and the dancing and jousting shown in the photos seemed to be a complete affront to the WTA and WTT organizers whom she had bailed on. 
   
8. July 19: One-time MTV VJ (and friend of Serena) LaLa Vazquez tweets a photo of Serena that shows her lying in bed with an enormous boot on her foot.  Those who had previously doubted and mocked the injury (myself admittedly included) are now confused.
9. August 22: Last Friday, a little over a week before the US Open, Serena Williams officially withdraws from the 2010 US Open, making slam-less, Tier I title-less Caroline Wozniacki the #1 seed at the event.

I am still admittedly a bit confused about how an injury could allow for high heels and jousting but at the same time require surgery, an enormous boot, and the missing of a grand slam event.  But these appear to be the facts of the case, ladies and gentlemen of the public.  Make of them what you will.