Serena Willims threatens to Kill Line judge...then DQ!

There's no evidence she shouted any racial slur.

I think it needs to be mentioned how sad this incident made everyone, even the officials. It was just a "perfect storm" of circumstances that caused it to be as pivotal as it was. According to the rules, the officials HAD to give Serena a point penalty...and it just happened to be match point. You could tell that no one was happy about this.

It is a very sad situation but she physically threatened someone. That is a huge difference. She didn't do a MCEnroe and say, are you f...g kidding me", she made a threat.And she has shown zero remorse. And so many think this is not so bad?

Picayune wrote:

There's no evidence she shouted any racial slur.

I think it needs to be mentioned how sad this incident made everyone, even the officials. It was just a "perfect storm" of circumstances that caused it to be as pivotal as it was. According to the rules, the officials HAD to give Serena a point penalty...and it just happened to be match point. You could tell that no one was happy about this.

Yep. The commentators mentioned during the Federer-Djokovic match that her outburst could have resulted in ejection if it had occurred at a less pivotal moment. As a tennis fan, I am glad that tennis is one of the few sports that still expects athletes to behave with some modicum of class and I like the fact that they issued the penalty and the fine (though the fine is obviously a slap on the wrist and is probably only a minuscule percentage of what she earned during the tournament).

She made $350,000 for reaching the semis. So this is, what, approximately 3%?

whiteisright wrote:

and everytime that a baseball player shouts at an ump people start a thread about it on messageboards across the country, right?

I wonder why not. I guess it is okay or not a big deal for certain people to be rude and shout at others. Others, like Skip Gates and Serena Williams need to know their place.

If this had happened at a lower-tier event, it would have gotten very little coverage, if any at all. But it happened in the semis of the U.S. Open. The baseball equivalent would be if it was the bottom of the 9th of Game 7 of the NLCS and the star hitter got tossed for shouting at the ump over balls and strikes. I guarantee that would be all over the news, especially if the guy's team lost the game because of it.

not buy wrote:

Didn't Serena shout a racial slur at the asian judge?

That is what I read on the Yahoo mini video captions this morning. Maybe Yahoo was wrong? It was noisy. Why doesn't the line judge make a statement? Heads must roll!

Bear of Bad News wrote:

Yep. The commentators mentioned during the Federer-Djokovic match that her outburst could have resulted in ejection if it had occurred at a less pivotal moment. As a tennis fan, I am glad that tennis is one of the few sports that still expects athletes to behave with some modicum of class and I like the fact that they issued the penalty and the fine (though the fine is obviously a slap on the wrist and is probably only a minuscule percentage of what she earned during the tournament).

As has been said NUMEROUS times, they have to enforce the code violation. If they did not, the other player or their coach would have filed a protest.

Two code violations = loss of point. The loss of point happened at 15-40 (Clijsters had 3 points - Williams 1), after the foot fault made it a double fault and a double fault is a lost point. Therefore it was MATCH. That is what "match point" means.

She was not DQ'ed. You all must be getting this from watching it on Youtube where it says that. She also did not lose the match because of it. She lost a point.

In tennis it is NOT subjective on what to do when something like this happens. It is a code violation. You can see the line judge look at the Chair Umpire as if to say, "Are you seeing this?"

I watched it again and noticed that when she approaches the line judge there are about 50 people directly behind the line judge and about 10 of them had cameras and video cameras focused on Williams. They all looked horrified that Serena approached and yelled at the line judge.

I don't think that this amounts to threatening the judge physically, or threatening to kill her. That is hyperbole. She said, "If I could ..." and she "waved" her racquet at the woman. If she had hit her with her hands or her racquet then that would be a big deal. There were also a bunch fo people right there to help the judge, so if she felt "scared" it isn't for a very good reason. She had to report the verbal abuse, if she hadn't it would have looked like favortism (or worse!), remember this is the US OPEN!

She got the code violation, she lost the point (due to smashing her racquet earlier -- also highly avoidable), and she lost the next point without playing it. Therefore, she lost the match, that is all. The players know the rules and know what will get them a code violation.

If she hadn't broken her racquet she would not have had the fist code violation. If she hadn't berated the line judge she would not have gotten the code violation then she could have served to save the game and match at 15-40. She MIGHT have won that point, or she might not have. But that point was not the whole match. And that is all we can ever say.

I don't think this has anything to do with race, or class. I don't think Serena shows much class most of the time on the court, but I think this is mostly a case of losing your temper due to how critical the point was (end of the match).

Yes, John McEnroe behaved badly during his career. Yes, Ilie Nastase behaved worse some of the time. Nobody disputes that. Don't see what it has to do with what happened yesterday with her not controlling her temper.

You're arguing against something that I didn't say. I know that she lost a point on a code violation. What I said is that that it was brought up that she might have been ejected if her outburst had occurred earlier in the match at a point that it wouldn't have automatically cost her the match. If you watched the Federer-Djokovic match, you heard the conversation that I'm talking about.

say, was serena disqualified?

Yep ... you are right. I should not have quoted you, or even replied to you, because you are one of the people who does know what is going on.

I was mostly replying to all the other idiots who were saying that the "foot fault" was a bad call, and all the other things. They don't understand tennis.

I don't understand football, but I don't comment on it either.

so you think mcenroe is an idiot for saying he did not see any footfault on the play?

What's being over looked here is the terrible call by the lines-woman.

It wasn't an in/out call.

It was a second serve footfault, that set up match point in the US Open semifinal. And it wasn't obvious.

That's like calling a ticky-tack minor penalty in an NHL overtime game 7 conference final game.

No call had to be made there. Let them play.

If Serena didn't lose her cool the call would have been the story.

Well, I had read your posts and think you are racist AND idiot to boot. And I am about to prove the idiot part right now.

But NOTHING. THAT (the fact that SEVERAL posters brought up Serena's race and the actions of other black athletes, which has nothing to do with this) was what I complaining about. Hello??? But somehow you didn't get that point???? THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF MY COMMENTS AND WHAT GOT ME UPSET. zooooom! RIght over your head, huh?

Oh really? Well, let's see you defend that charge. This oughta be good:

WHAT?!?! If that doesn't prove you're an idiot, then nothing will. I am about to go John McEnroe on your ass. So let's get this straight. My" reaction smacks of racism" because, according to you....

1) I didn't condemn her.

EXCEPT.... I did condemn her and said she "acted like an idiot." Whoops. Minus 1 for you.

2) I compared her to McEnrone.

Well, my John McEnroe "comparison" was because others brought him up first (duh), and said that he never really did anything nearly this bad. I pointed out that while he may not have said anything to the extent of what Serena said, he certainly said many, many, many things about as bad, including swearing at officials, threatening their jobs, throwing rackets towards them, screaming in their faces, humiliating them, etc. So.....people are saying that what serena did was 100x worse, and I called bullshit on that, and am correct about that.

Minus 2 for you.

3) *I* brought race into this debate.

You already agreed that "nutwings that used Serena behavior as an example of poor black behavior are racist", and clearly THAT was what I mostly was responding to, yet you then have the insanity to say that *I* was "so quick to bring race into this topic" !?!? Minus 500 for you.

Other people brought up race and I condemned it. Other people said McEnroe never did anything close to this bad and I said bullshit. I said Serena was an idiot. THAT's IT. But this means I am racist?? ok, you are officially insane.

:53 - foot fault

2:00 - someone yells "yes you did"

2:04 - nodding definitely "yes"

5:19 - replay, almost on top of the woman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-VxYvfwVas&NR=1

and the winner is.... wrote:

Friday Night Fights Again wrote:

Simon, take your hateful, redneck, hillbilly uneducated crap somewhere else. Sick, jealous little boy aren't you?

and the winner of the "let's circumvent the issue by playing the over-used race card" goes too...

da-da-da-daaaahhhhh....

Sorry buddy. Simon opened with the race card.

youcannotbeserious wrote:

so you think mcenroe is an idiot for saying he did not see any footfault on the play?

No, a foot fault is just a call. It cannot be overruled. You have to accept it. McEnroe isn't dumb for anything that happened today. He doesn't have anything to do with this. They could have had someone else in the booth and if the same call was made, they would have asked them and they would have looked at the replay and said the same thing.

I wasn't talking about people being idiots because she did or did not fault, what I was saying is that when a fault is called, it is final.

Letsrunners kept commenting that the foot fault wasn't even obvious, so what? Maybe the line judge blew it totally? I don't know. But that foot fault made two faults, then berating her made a code violation.

If she hadn't had a fault on the first serve, none of this would have happened. Then, as was pointed out above, if she had not approached and berated the judge the story would have been the foot fault call that brought Clijsters to double-match-point.

Also, if it were not for the earlier code violation for breaking her racquet the code violation for berating the official WOULD NOT have resulted in a lost point.

If I'd been there I would have yelled "YOU LIE!" at Serena the dark princess. Then I would have launched into a diatribe about the loss of my freedoms and the theft of my social security disability income by the federal government. Then I would have changed into a fresh drool bib. Yee-HAW!

Top player does it in the world series there will be talk. Coach does it maybe ok he's just sticking up for his guys, but a star throwing the game by losing his cool would be unacceptable.

return to index wrote:

It has nothing to do with her being black. Can't you think of any other reason why someone wouldn't like Serena? I voted for Obama, cheer for Venus, and find Serena very unlikable.