Anyone old enough to remember John McEnroe’s famous tirades shouldn’t be too surprised at tennis pros behaving badly. Venus takes herself out of the match with the tirade.
This one by Serena Williams will be a classic –
It is extraordinarily rare that a minor foot fault is called at this level of a match. However, Serena’s behavior was over the top.
Btx3's Blog 
CNu
September 14, 2009 at 11:55 AM
au contraire mon frere…,
Mme William’s outburst was understandable in light of her Grand Slam record quest, and, the fact that she’s clawed her way back from deficits as bad or worse than this one on more occasions than I care to recount.
The line judge was an incompetent NYC garment district refugee who needs to be banned from USTA involvement for life. There was NO foot fault!!!
The Chief Judge and Tournament Referee were entirely derelict in their duties because under the circumstances, they could have easily reviewed the skycam video that was broadcast on CBS SHOWING that there was no foot fault.
What was Brian Early doing anyway besides sipping pomtinis in the cool officials booth?!?!? You mean to tell me that it’s NOT his job to carry and demonstrate the “cool head” which should prevail and decide under high stress circumstances such as these?
sheeeeeiiiiiittttttttt……,
Serena is catching a bad rap and folks are okey-dokeying the same. Much as your preznit okey-doked the false arrest of skip gates and folded like a beehotch with less testicular fortitude than caster semenya.
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btx3
September 14, 2009 at 12:47 PM
Not a big fan of tennis. Even the idea of watching Venus’ athletic body scrambling around the court in tennis tights hasn’t drawn this old guy into being able to watch 3 hours of swack-swack.
I believe this particular ref is finished as a referee in professional tennis. Bad call at a really bad time. And I do fault the refs for not reviewing the call.
However, Serena is a big girl – top of the game for years now. No way it should have been even close enough for a “foot fault” to make the decision. Second – shouldn’t she have appealed to the head judge, instead of even bothering with the judge who made the call?
Lastly, WTF was the deal with the line judge running to the net judge?
The talk of banning Serena? Forget it. The US Open is going to lose quite a bit of money through lacking her star power in the final event. Even the draw of a previously unheralded unknown turns sour when there isn’t a compelling competitive story line – and the unknown didn’t get there by actually winning by her own hand.
Getting stupid about it by taking unprecedented action against a top player can only compound the problem.
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