David Gardner, Daily Mail (London), September 14, 2009
This was the dramatic moment when Serena Williams screamed her way out of the U.S. Open.
TV viewers around the world saw the irate Wimbledon champion launch a threatening, profanity-laced tirade at a female line judge after being called for a foot fault.
‘If I could, I would take this ******* ball and shove it down your ******* throat,’ she reportedly said.
The diminutive lineswoman reported her words to the umpire, who called in the tournament referee at Flushing Meadows in New York.
With the crowd booing, Miss Williams could be heard on the court microphone pleading with the lineswoman, saying: ‘I didn’t say I would kill you. Are you serious? I didn’t say that.’
But her extraordinary outburst meant she was docked a point on match point, handing a semi-final victory to bemused Belgian opponent Kim Clijsters in one of the ugliest-ever endings to a major sports match.
Clijsters, who retired from tennis more than two years ago and was playing on a wild card entry, went on to become the U.S. Open champion early this morning.
She celebrated on court with 18-month-old daughter Jada and husband Brian after beating Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 7-5 6-3 to notch up another grand slam victory.
In the semi-final, Miss Williams had already received a warning for smashing a racquet, so the next sanction was a penalty point for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Not since John McEnroe was defaulted in the Australian Open in 1990 for swearing at the umpire has a top player made such an ignominious exit from such a high-profile match.
It happened when, with the 27-year-old American serving at 5-6 and 15-30 in the second set, she faulted on her first serve.
On her second serve, the line judge declared a foot fault, a call rarely, if ever, seen at that stage of a match.
That made the score 15-40, putting Miss Clijsters one point from a place in the final.
Miss Williams stormed over to the line judge, cursing and shaking her racquet, pointing at her and thrusting a ball in her face.
When the ruling was announced, she walked around the net to shake hands with her stunned opponent, who did not appear to understand at first what had happened.
At her post-match press conference, she was asked if she wished to apologise to the lineswoman.
‘An apology for?’ she asked. ‘From me? How many people yell at linespeople? Players, athletes get frustrated—I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that happen.
‘I haven’t really thought about it to have any regrets. I was out there and I fought and I tried and I did my best.
‘I used to have a real temper, and I’ve gotten a lot better,’ she said, with no apparent sense of irony.
‘So I know you don’t believe me, but I used to be worse. Yes, yes indeed.’
Asked what she had said to the line judge, she replied: ‘What did I say? You didn’t hear? I’ve never been in a fight in my whole life, so I don’t know why she would have felt threatened.’
Clijsters, from Belgium, had not played at Flushing Meadows since winning the title there in 2005 after missing 2006 due to injury and the following two years because she had already retired.
‘I don’t have words for this,’ the 26-year-old said after her win early this morning. ‘I’m just glad I got to come back and defend my title from 2005. It’s so exciting for me.’
The player, who is hugely popular on the circuit and collects $1.6m in prize money along with the title, said winning was ‘not really our plan’.
‘I just wanted to start these three tournaments to get back into the rhythm of playing tennis and get used to the surroundings again.’
Wozniacki, who was seeded ninth and playing in her first grand slam final, said: ‘She’s such a great girl. Unfortunately she beat me today. She played a great match and deserved this trophy.’
Clijsters is not expected to return to playing full time but is expected to appear in the major tournaments, including possibly Wimbledon next year.
[Editor’s Note: Tiger Woods also is notorious for unsportsmanlike conduct. Read the story here.
Original article
(Posted on September 14, 2009)
Comments
Nothing like an amazon tennis star or any other black athlete when it comes to setting an example for younger players and adoring fans.
Athletics and entertainment. That’s all blacks have. All they will ever have. In her case I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t partly a ‘roid rage’. See the very manly-like body on her. As for the lineswoman she should look into pressing charges of threatening and assault.
Gee, if I was a little Chinese lady and some big honkin African female came at me I would be scared out of my wits. In fact, I think most anyone would be scared, Africans do not have alot of emotional control.
Can’t much fault the Black athlete here.
The fault was with some idiot little Asian girl, lines judge that has to throw herself in to things she shouldn’t.
With the match closing down to final key points, Serena could come back to tie the match and force a third set. Only a really glaring foot fault should ever be called on a second serve in this time of a match. I watched the re-play, couldn’t see any infraction, must have been hairline.
I would have had the same choice words for this idiot little Asian girl linesjudge, but I wouldn’t have threatened to shove it down her throat.
The Williams Sisters have played fine tennis for many years now, the father - who was once a huge problem with Black uppity attitude “issues” hasn’t caused any problems for a long time. Tennis is a great sport and still very, very White. I highly recommend American Renaissance readers take up the sport and promote it at all levels.
Let’s kick the Black thug sports:
Basketball
Tennis - including the Williams sisters is a great sport.
Not since John McEnroe was defaulted in the Australian Open in 1990 for swearing at the umpire has a top player made such an ignominious exit from such a high-profile match.
As I recall McEnroe got a fair amount of notoriety for his behavior in the media. I wonder if Williams will be treated the same way???
I will be glad when these hulking Williams sisters are gone for good.
People like John McEnroe have said that you just don’t call foot faults that late in the game!
Well, what are the rules for? And how many times has this hulking brat NOT been called for foot faults?
Kudos to the judge, and the unintimidated way she responded to the tantrum.
“Another celebrity black athlete has temper trouble.”
It’s the typical black impetuousness that hampers most all of them, and her trash talking mouth just reveals who she really was all along.
Tennis has suffered an image problem with this horrible-looking/acting primitive on the scene.
Yes, we had John McEnroe, but he was the exception. With blacks he would be the norm.
The article doesn’t mention this, but I think Serena Williams had a racial axe to grind with the line judges. And by that, I think she thought she deserved every marginal call.
Some black talking heads are trying to brush this off, going so far as to claim that this is “her time of the month.” Except a lot of women play tennis, and play it on a high level, and just by pure numbers, some have played matches during their “time of the month.” Yet, they never let out hissy fits.
How nice, that this & the Kenya West fiasco at the MTV awards were reported on the same day. We’re all so very enriched by having these people among us, aren’t we?
When I hear of the Williams sisters these days the two things that come to mind are 1. when they asked President Clinton to be exempt from paying taxes as they “worked very hard to get where they are.”
Blacks appear to be losing it on several levels, and all within the same time frame. They must be imploding. Witness Michael Jordan’s speech; the South African desire to go to war over the decision relating to the gender of Caster Semenya; Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s speech at the VMA awards - all this adds up to the fact that something is making them hot under the collar. It would seem that they think that the transition to black rule in the USA would entitle them to whatever they may want, including those in other countries such as South Africa. Typically, blacks are good at getting in your face, particularly if there are two or three of them against only one White person. Alone, unless packing a knife or a gun, they are the proverbial cowards. And even then, if the person they attack is a real fighter, the knife and/or gun won’t do the black assailant much good. They are showing their true colors, and this can help our cause (maybe) by helping others in great numbers to become race realists.
“And they shall beat their ploughshares into swords and their pruning hooks into spears.”
I would encourage everyone to pull up the original article, the top two pictures are priceless and so funny (the looks on their faces).
She is just sooooo ghetto, even her initial “apology”, she is truly straight out of the hood. At one point she said she had “never even been in a fight” and smiled. Right. I felt bad for the little Asian judge, she was obviously concerned that she would be physically assaulted.
“Thanks for sports, and now for the latest in the music world.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1213280/Kanye-West-ruins-Taylor-Swifts-big-MTV-acceptance-speech-storms-stage.html
As one person said memorably, “you can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the girl.”
Those pictures are worth looking at. I particularly had not realized that the official who was threatened was a tiny Oriental woman, merely half Serena’s size. No wonder she felt intimidated! Of course, the media wouldn’t say a peep about race, so you have to see this for yourself in order to understand what this was all about.
And Michael Jordan Ceremony went ghetto. And I thought Michael Jordan was our kind of…
Kanye West rude racist stage rush
It doesnt rub off. Behaviour like this pull down good order. But this is the America that white America is allowing to happen. Enjoy
Remember Serena has measurements that should put her in the mens competition. And the diminutive Asian ref shouldnt have felt threatened? Tell that to all the women assaulted by angry black women.
I think we caught a glimpse of “the real Serena” during that match.
What is being lost in her temper tantrum is that she was beat - she lost the first set, and was well on her way to losing the second set.
Clijsters not only defeated Venus, but she defeated Serena - two of the “darlings” of US tennis.
Serena would never have thrown such a tantrum if she was losing, but she was losing - and this was her way out, and anyone in the media who is suggesting she lost the match because of the call is a racist - as everyone knows you don’t lose matches or sets because of bad calls - you lose games.
She knew she was losing, she lost the first set, she was down in the second, and she threw a tantrum.
Congratulations to Kim - only the 3rd woman who is a mother ever to win a slam, and only the 2nd who was unranked to win a slam.
Chrisy Everet! Now that is a role model. Always kept her cool and focused on the game.
Is anyone really surprised by Williams’ behavior? I’m just surprised she was penalized. You would think the Tennis officials would have been afraid to appear racist. That’s a plus; however, if this were a White athlete, there would have been far more criticism I suspect. If the official had been White would Williams have been penalized? That’s another question we should ask ourselves.
Not just John McEnroe, q.
Clijsters not only defeated Venus, but she defeated Serena - two of the “darlings” of US tennis.
Looks like a woman on steroids to me.
Actually looks more like a muscular male than a woman.
My US Open was mad when Kim took the win.
Williams broke her racket after the first set and then with this outburst by rule she had to give up a point.
What was she thinking with all those people close by using the F word several times and walking threateningly over to the little Asian lady?
The Williams should play on the men’s side where they belong.
True class always comes out, doesn’t it?
This is a non-story,most tennis players be they black,white,yellow,or anything in between are unthinking overpaid brats.John McEnroe was doing this at Wimbledon twenty five years ago,and he is now a feted member of the All England Tennis Club.A tennis player losing his/her rag has nothing to do with race.
Okay, I just looked at the pictures of her brandishing* the Tennis racket…(*to wave about in a reckless, threatening or hostile manner)and the linesman just sitting there. It brought me straight back to the 1980`s when I had to ride the bus. The FIRST THING I learned was to never, never, ever sit at the bus-stop. Cause if you do there would be a thug lurking over you with his hand out or his fist raised in less time than it took to count out forty cents in change for the fare!
She expected to get special treatment because she is a double minority. Sorry. You won’t get a free pass on this one.
Yes lets pick on one black person. Look at the violent history of hockey. As a white person, I can say this is a double standard because look at the thuggery in hockey. Compare the violent thug behavior to the thuggery in basketball and football. The only reason those two sports are even mention in this website is because blacks are dominating whites in it.
Lets get back to the real issues and not make a big issue over something small trivial. Seriously she did what Ive seen many white tennis players do.
I would have done the same thing if I was Serena. She lost two points, including match point, for a foot fault, which are almost never called unless its glaring…expecially for match point.
Yo, she’s from COMPTON, CA homies. Lest we forget.
Yes lets pick on one black person. Look at the violent history of hockey. As a white person, I can say this is a double standard because look at the thuggery in hockey
Just because misbehavior exists somewhere we should ignore it everywhere? Is that what you imply? The violence in hockey should be no excuse for extending it to tennis. It is ALL wrong, wherever it happens and should be condenmed everywhere! But hockey occasionally brings its players into physical contact. Not so tennis. Incidentally, hockey is considered a rowdy male sport, in case you haven’t noticed, but tennis is/was considered genteel and Serena Williams is considered a woman.
But furthermore, this increasing tolerance for violence and vulgarity closely mirrors the growing ‘thuggification’ and coarsening of our entire culture, our language, our forms of entertainment, that has been going on over the past 40 years — ever since the coincidental implementation of integration — even when not engaged in directly by blacks themselves but by young white people [eg. McEnroe] who are the obvious product of that era. At one time, such behavior or language would not have been tolerated. But since the integration of blacks into sports, and the inevitable lowering of standards as ALWAYS happens everywhere, every sort of misbehavior has become tolerated — under the fear, no doubt, of appearing to be racist or being charged with racism.
I say let’s ban thuggery in ALL sports. It’s a gradually spreading problem, like some corrosive blight, even invading tennis and golf in recent years — which were once considered refined sports for ladies and gentlemen. What next? Yachting? This is nothing trivial. People like you who would dismiss it, minimize it, and excuse it are responsible for the existence of the problem.
Lets get back to the real issues and not make a big issue over something small trivial. Seriously she did what Ive seen many white tennis players do.
Oh boy, you guys that are comparing hockey to tennis need to get more oxygen to your brain. In hockey, toughness, checking and occaisional fighting are part of the game. It is expected and it is both allowed and controlled. What Williams did was ugly and not part of the game.
Did you admire the white tennis players? If not, then how does this apply to a nonwhite? Bad behavior is bad behavior. Any admiration I ever had for John McEnroe left with his behavior. Same holds true for the Williams player.
For what it’s worth, I never could stand McEnroe, because he always acted like tantrum throwing idiot. Good player? Yes, but it’s hard to admire an athlete that behaves like a spoiled brat. Same for the Williams sisters.
“21 — Anonymous wrote at 1:50 AM on September 15:
Professional sports looks like a black rogues gallery of criminals they commit so many indiscretions and crime. And you’re comparing them with Jimmy Conners?
Really funny.
Michael Banes: And what happens to hockey players that fight? The refs might let them slug it out for a bit, but then they get sent to the sin bin. In other words, the rules are applied, no different than with Serena Williams.
Just talking tennis here, q, not football. If John McEnroe was just an exception, what are Jimmy Connors and Ille Nastase? Tennis officials allowed the game to get ugly back in the 70s, by tolerating these punks and their antics for years. Serena Williams is just following a path blazed by White “men” years ago. She’s awful, true, but if the sport had kept its act clean in the first place, she wouldn’t dare pull this kind of stunt.
Just for the record, Roger Federer, the arbiter of Euro gentility was fined $10,000 for cursing the ref after losing the US open final.
For the most part, John McEnroe knew what he could get away with and what he couldn’t.
On one memorable occasion at Wimbledon, he was penalized for “abuse of ball”, to which he replied, “I must have abused that ball something fierce! Better bring in a new one; I probably broke it.” I couldn’t help but laugh.
Telling a line judge you’d like to shove a tennis ball down her throat is not in the same league.
I had a conversation with my mother a week ago on a related thread: the decision to allow Michael Vick to play pro football again after his dog fighting conviction. I compared his case with that of Pete Rose, who was banned from baseball for life and removed from the Hall of Fame. The difference is that Vick’s grotesque crominal conduct had no actual bearing on the game, while Pete Rose was not only betting on baseball games, but betting on games in which he was playing. Accordingly, I have an easier time accepting that a thug like Vick could be readmitted than a sleaze like Rose.
Of course, my own approach to the whole problem of badly-behaved atheletes is to simply refrain from watching sports.
