Talk About Serena Open Thread

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At MadProfessah's, bambam's, and Don Scarlett's request.

I took for granted everybody had talked about this the night it happened.

My bad.

Here are a few of my remarks from that Open Thread.

But if you want to fight to defend your title, you must must must contain yourself. You CANNOT threaten to shove a fucking tennis ball down a player's throat.

There are no excuses for such threats on a tennis court.

I won't excuse it. Not for Lleyton Hewitt. Not for Serena Williams.

::

I can't and I won't excuse Serena's behavior.

But she snapped and it wasn't pretty.

That said, the men get away with murder. Roddick, my other fave, berates umpires and linespeople on the regular (though not lately) and I don't excuse him either. But he gets away with it.

Because he's a man?

Serena doesn't need to be banned from anything. She took her penalty and her press conference performance was positive and strong, whether she was "acting" or not.

If you can sift through the cacophony of banter, there are quite a few comments about the situation from several posters.

Serena Williams was fined $10,000. In her statement, she said:

“Last night, everyone could truly see the passion I have for my job. Now that I have had time to gain my composure, I can see that while I don’t agree with the unfair line call, in the heat of battle I let my passion and emotion get the better of me and as a result handled the situation poorly.

“I would like to thank my fans and supporters for understanding that I am human and I look forward to continuing the journey, both professionally and personally, with you all as I move forward and grow from this experience.”

Serena's amended statement:

I want to amend my press statement of yesterday, and want to make it clear as possible - I want to sincerely apologize FIRST to the lines woman, the USTA, and mostly tennis fans everywhere for my inappropriate outburst. I'm a woman of great pride, faith and integrity, and I admit when I'm wrong.

I need to make it clear to all young people that I handled myself inappropriately and it's not the way to act -- win or lose, good call or bad call in any sport, in any manner.

I like to lead by example. We all learn from experiences both good and bad, I will learn and grow from this, and be a better person as a result.

Mary Carillo thinks the fine is a joke. Not sure what she thinks would be more appropriate. Thinks Serena (and therefore Venus) should be defaulted from the doubles final tomorrow and suspended from the sport.

John McEnroe thinks she should be suspended but her suspension should be that she be forced to play the smaller events in the fall that she probably wasn't going to play anyway because that would be good for the sport.

Yup. I heard it with my own ears. That's what he said.

We have officially entered the Twilight Zone.

Have at it.