The curse of Gillette

Gillette sporting ambassadors Thierry Henry (L), Tiger Woods (C) and Roger Federer have all made headlines for the wrong reasons recently. Photos / AP

This weekend it notched up more victims. Yes, one by one, the quartet of global sports stars who have eschewed facial hair to vaunt the merits of a close shave have, pardon the pun, been cut down by ... the curse of Gillette.

First Thierry Henry, one of Gillette's current trio of top-notch ambassadors (along with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer), goes and does that handball.

Then Woods, the golden boy of golf and all-round sporting god, makes headline news after crashing his car following an argument with his wife. Not only that, but Woods' crash was quickly followed by a shock defeat for Federer, the world's best tennis player, who was knocked out of the ATP World Tour semi-final by sixth-seeded Russian, Nikolay Davydenko.

On the scale of sporting defeats, it's hardly Armageddon, but any Federer defeat is noteworthy.

Federer's loss and Woods' woes capped a hat-trick of Gillette casualties in the past 10 days: David Beckham was dropped by the multinational razor company two years ago, but he hasn't managed to shake off the legacy of its curse. As if being booed on the pitch earlier this summer by Los Angeles Galaxy fans wasn't bad enough, the footballer was last week outed as a secret asthma sufferer, after pulling out an inhaler on the bench. Critics mumbled that asthma wasn't something a sporting superstar should have tried to hide.

Meanwhile, Woods managed to land himself in hospital on Friday after totalling his car, into which he had leapt to beat a retreat from his golf club-wielding wife, Elin Nordegren. According to the gossip website TMZ, the pair had rowed about reports that Woods was seeing another woman before he took off, only to crash his SUV into a fire hydrant and then into a tree as he pulled out of the driveway of his house in Windermere, near Orlando, Florida.

The accident left Woods semi-conscious with lacerations to his lips, according to the police officers who found him. That was after his wife had smashed one of the car windows with a golf club, the key question being whether this happened before or after the crash. Woods may have escaped major injury - he was discharged yesterday - but he has some explaining to do to police who haven't yet managed to question him because he's been sleeping off the after-effects of the accident.