Kim Clijsters vs. Serena
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This is a guest post from Caitlin Moscatello, who has written for Sports Illustrated and Salon.
Last night while Kim Clijsters celebrated her U.S. Open victory, Serena Williams walked on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards and quipped that singer Pink, suspended high above the stage, wouldn’t “have to worry about stepping over any lines” during her performance. The statement was a clear nod to Williams’ semifinal match against Clijsters, but much of the humor was lost on the crowd. The U.S.’s top female tennis player might be eager to make light of her behavior, but the real line that she crossed wasn’t the white one marking the court—it was the moral boundary she jumped over when she threatened a line judge (a decision that, in addition to an earlier warning, cost her $10,500 in fines and potentially more).
It went like this: After the first set of the match, Williams was issued a warning for slamming down her racket. Then in what proved to be the final game, she was called for a foot fault on her second serve. The double fault gave Clijsters match point, putting Williams on the brink of losing. Her tirade resulted in a point penalty that made Clijsters the winner. The call was certainly questionable, but it in no way justified what came next. Williams raised her racket at the judge and said, “I swear to God I'm [expletive] going to take this [expletive] ball and shove it down your [expletive] throat, you hear that? I swear to God."
The incident is damaging for the game in the United States—for the first time in the 41-year Open era, an American didn't compete in a singles final—but mostly it just hurts Williams. As I wrote last week, Williams, while by no means struggling, is still well behind Maria Sharapova when it comes to endorsement earnings. Looks definitely play a role in this, but so does likability. It almost goes without saying that Williams won’t be any more appealing to sponsors now.
Also hurting her bid for Miss Congeniality is that in a post-match press conference, Williams failed to apologize for throwing a temper tantrum at one of the most-watched women’s sporting events in the world. She rejected the opportunity again yesterday in a released statement that said she “handled the situation poorly” but nowhere mentioned that she was sorry—a cop-out of owning her actions without owning up to them.
Williams’s lack of acknowledgement has only helped fuel speculation over whether or not she was motivated to make her seemingly inevitable loss to Clijsters (the Belgian player would have had a sizable lead even without the penalties) appear less than definitive. (I don’t believe this is the case, but I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind.) Meanwhile, female fans have rallied around Clijsters, who returned to the sport this year after giving birth to her now 18-month-old daughter. Perhaps it’s that women are proud to see a mother kick ass on the court. But even more, it could be that fans are simply grateful to see a player respect the rules and win by them. If the rest of us have to play nice in the sandbox, shouldn’t the same be true for the athletes we admire?
Whether or not redemption for Williams is possible will become clear this afternoon when she teams up with her sister Venus for the women’s doubles final. Unfortunately for Venus, Serena might have cost them the favor of the fans. On the plus side, the crowd at Arthur Ashe is likely too polite to start booing—a lesson Serena should take to heart.
Hanna Rosin Double X co- editor, reporter, prefer my friends live.
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Oops!
By: vardaman | Thu, 09/17/2009 - 03:27
You write, "for the first time in the 41-year Open era, an American didn't compete in a singles final." Tennis is filled with a lot of nonsensical statistics about "the Open era" but this is one happens not even to be correct! Without even looking anything up, I can think of two very recent years without an American in a singles final. In 2004, Rogert Federer (Swiss) defeated Lleyton Hewitt (Australian) while Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russian) beat Elena Dementieva (also Russian) while in 2007 Federer beat Novak Djokovic (Serb) and Justine Henin (Belgian) beat Kuznetsova.
PS: As for the comments about HawkEye (or "Chase Review" as it's called at the US Open), I'd always presumed that the technology couldn't be appllied to foot faults, at least not easily. It works by a series of cameras feeding images to a computer which then creates a "predicted path" for the ball. It's not 100 % accurate, but it's pretty damn good. The problem is, the ball almost always travels unencumbered through space and thus is easily photographed (particularly cloudy days, or courts covered in extreme contrasts of light and shadow, can render the system inoperable.) The feet, however, are beneath the player's body, particularly the foot that's near the baseline, and the player is moving independently of her foot, and the foot doesn't move in much of a trajectory at all -- foot faults usually occur because the player twists her foot as she serves, with the foot only actually leaving the ground after the ball as been struck. However, the inventor of the system told SI's tennis writer Jon Wertheim that such technology, while not currently available, is "technically possible." Considering the various flaws with the current challenge system (most troubling being that it's almost never used outside of the two main courts at majors) and the fact that the USTA is considering building a pretty roof over Arthur Ashe and I have to say I doubt it's coming soon.
last week
By: phpeter | Tue, 09/15/2009 - 08:34
I wrote about this last week when the subject came up, but Serena earns less because of her attitude and her demeanor. This was put on full display by her this weekend and I think she still has no idea why people are upset. She just doesn't get it and probably never will. I imagine this is not to unlike other athletes who grow up thinking they are special and that the world owes them something, whether it be a star football player or a star tennis player.
Poor Sport
By: Cande | Mon, 09/14/2009 - 16:09
Serena's behavior was completely unacceptable. Anger towards the lines person is understandable and a little yelling would have been tolerated. However, hurling a physical threat at the lines person is what pushed over this event over the edge. To those who say "was anything that McEnroe did any worse?" Maybe, but he behavior was also unacceptable and he also received warnings and point violations - just not on match point. Also, after the tirade McEnroe stated that Serena's behavior was unacceptable. So, if even John McEnroe has no sympathy towards her you know she shocked the tennis world. The lines person was doing her job. Did she do it badly at that moment - possibly, but no one should have to face that kind of abuse for doing their job. Serena is a world class poor sport, and this is not the first time she has made a threat. The other time was a threat to a player on the court at the French Open. She is what she is and those looking for a role model will have to look elsewhere.
I wonder.....
By: PandM | Mon, 09/14/2009 - 13:43
I can’t help but wonder if we would react the same if Serena were a man. I agree it showed poor sportsmanship, but she is human like the rest of us. This is tennis, not Congress.
So what?
By: alkali | Mon, 09/14/2009 - 12:45
She lost her composure, she recovered, she congratulated Clijsters on winning the match. Is this any worse than anything John McEnroe did? (And I don't mean by that comparison to suggest that JM is the bottom of the barrel; he's a great tennis player and a good man who occasionally lost his temper.) Tennis will survive.
Challenging foot faults?
By: TommyK | Mon, 09/14/2009 - 12:33
There is a hole in the 'player challenge' system - apparently you cannot challenge a foot fault call. This would have avoided the problem. I have no idea how the system works (or even if it does work - perhaps the results are purely random), but it seems that if it can spot the position of a ball flying out of the court at close to 100 mph it should be able to figure out whether a static shoe is over the line or not.
OK without apology...
By: kmsqrd | Mon, 09/14/2009 - 12:09
If all Serena can say about the situation is that she “handled the situation poorly”, I'm OK with that. It's better than an insincere apology if she's not really sorry.