Venus scales a huge, unstable pole in new game show

Game On! featuring Venus Williams kicked off last Wednesday and the entertainment level has been high. The game show—based on A League on Their Own and hosted by Keegan-Michael Key—pits Team Venus against Team Rob Gronkowski.

While the celebrity guest teammates change every week, Gronkowski will always be teamed up with comedian Bobby Lee and Venus with comedian Ian Karmel.

In episode one, Venus Williams took part in a one of the challenges where she tried  to kick a field goal (she missed). Throughout the show the 39-year-old is very involved in answering questions under pressure, but only appears sporadically in the physical challenges.

She got to meet surprise guest Mary J. Blige during the soccer challenge, and officially has a career win over Rob Gronkowski. Taking the L for Team Gronk meant eating bugs, to which Venus said, “Thank God we won!”

In episode two, the celebrities teammates were Ronda Rousey and Demi Lovato. Lee and Karmel were used as human bowling balls for one challenge, while Gronk and Key faced off in the skies in a real-life fighter jet battle.

Tennis made its debut in a game of “Grunt Off” where whoever got the highest decibel reading would win. All six players participated and Team Venus won by a landslide thanks to Lovato using the crowd.

Finally came Venus’ biggest moment of the show so far. In "Manning the Mast" she had to climb an unstable, tall pole and ring a bell while her opponents answered questions. The hardest part was the top where she had to step up onto a tiny clear platform without anything to hold onto.

“The producers haven't given me a choice they said I have to do this,” Venus said.

Gronkowski absolutely crushed the scaling challenge in what felt like milliseconds. That meant Team Venus “Took the L”,  which led to Karmel being put into an arm bar tackle by Rousey.

Come for the witty banter and physical challenges, and stay for Venus' side eye.

Check out the latest episode of the TENNIS.com Podcast with artist Bruce Sulzberg:

Subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tennis-com-podcast/id339875623 | https://open.spotify.com/show/2ihq5SJ8N72EsloO9XunbW

Watch TENNIS.com Podcast episodes on *YouTube* and *Facebook*.