Name one.
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It's time for Serena Williams to own up to her bad behavior
By Wayne Coffey / DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Saturday, September 17, 2011, 3:05 PM
Serena Williams earns a laughable $2,000 fine for outburst at 2011 U.S. Open.
Serena Williams may be the greatest women's tennis player who ever lived. She (along with sister Venus) is the centerpiece of as triumphant and inspirational a story as there has ever been in American sport.
She is also a complete and utter fraud.
Another U.S. Open has come and gone, and had its finish hijacked by Serena Williams and her anger and entitlement - and abject refusal ever to own any of her behavior. Two years ago, there was her menacing, profane tirade at a line judge who called her for a foot fault late in her semifinal against Kim Clijsters, her pleasantries including a desire to "shove this ball down your throat."
This year's outburst, directed at chair umpire Eva Asderaki for invoking the hindrance rule after Williams shouted during a point, was a good deal more muted; Williams merely wagged her racket in Asderaki's face, called her "a loser" and "a hater" and said "If you ever see me walking down the hall, walk the other way." Who knows what the outcome of the final might've been if Williams hadn't been so consumed with being the victim that she actually played her best tennis against the brilliant Samantha Stosur?
The 2009 incident cost Williams match point, an $82,500 fine and a two-year probation. This year's incident merely cost Williams loose change - the USTA's laughable $2,000 fine, or .14% of her $1.4 million check - and what was left of her credibility, as she repeatedly said afterward, in a sweet, girly voice, that she didn't remember what happened and "it was just so intense out there."
The common thread is Williams' unrivaled obstinacy and total allergy to remorse. There's certainly no shortage of narcissistic multi-millionaires in the sports world, athletes with neither self-awareness nor any appreciation of their impact on others.
Serena is the captain of the team.
Three days after this year's Open, Williams Tweeted about how "my emotions did get the best of me." It was about as contrite as she was two years ago when she issued a pair of pathetic non-apologies, or when she was asked for her recollection of her profanity-laced exit from 2009 before this year's Open.
"A lot of people were telling me they thought I was super cool, that they never saw me so intense," she said.
No doubt these are the same people who tell Serena Williams she is bigger than the sport, and beholden to nobody, because she is Serena. Multiple sources say that Jill Smoller, Williams' agent, has implored Serena to own her actions and express even a modicum of remorse, and gotten nowhere.
"Serena is fantastic for the sport of tennis in a thousand ways, on and off the court," one seasoned official in professional tennis said, " but it's certainly unfortunate that when she does something wrong she hasn't managed to find a way to take responsibility."
The official didn't want to speak on the record about Serena Williams. Few do. What we are left with is a demonstrable champion who turns into a wannabe hoodlum when crossed.
We are also left with considerable hypocrisy: a woman who professes to be deeply moved by the honor of playing on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, then degrades the occasion with her bullying and belligerence; a person who will solemnly thank Jehovah one minute and show up shaking her ample booty in a soft-porn video the next.
The video, according to a tennis source, was a result of her email being hacked. It was not supposed to be public.
It is always somebody else's fault.
Serena Williams, who has made an epic comeback from injury and illness in 2011, played six phenomenal rounds of tennis at this year's Open, and was thoroughly gracious toward Samantha Stosur afterwards, even sitting next to her and laughing during the award ceremony. For that she deserves great credit. For the way she behaved on her way out she deserves none.
Serena Williams turns 30 years old in eight days. For her next role she might try impersonating a grownup.
