Sunday’s women’s final of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship confirmed a few things for me. One - Sam Stosur is an excellent player, better than most people would have given her credit for; Two - Tennis players are the biggest babies amongst ‘professional’ athletes; and Three – Serena Williams is the biggest baby of them all.
I know not all tennis players come from privileged backgrounds, but they’ve all been pampered from an early age and it shows. Boy, how do these people deal with any real adversity? If anything doesn’t go their way, it’s a conspiracy; someone’s screwing with them, blah, blah, blah. Serena acted like the bleep-hole she is because the referee made a call that went against her when Williams wasn’t following the rules. Wow, how unjust. The point in question came in the first game of in the second set. Williams was serving and facing a break point, when she hit what should have been a winner, but screamed “come on” before the ball had even gotten to Stosur. The referee rightly ruled to award the point to Stosur by way of the hindrance rule, giving the break and game to Stosur. Williams proceeded to go on a tirade that included, “aren’t you the same one who screwed me here 2 years ago”, referring to her meltdown at the Open that resulted in a penalty point that gave Kim Clijsters the Championship. The problem there is that the referee, Eva Asderaki, didn’t make the foot-fault call Serena was objecting to and she had no choice but to rule a penalty point when Williams went as far as threatening the line judge with physical harm. Later on Sunday Williams was heard to say, "You're out of control." "You're a hater, and you're just unattractive inside." "Really, don't even look at me.” Don’t even look at me? Reminds me of what my wife said she and her siblings would say to each other at the breakfast table with the cereal box in between them. Of course they were all in elementary school at the time. Refusing to shake the referee’s hand at the end of the match was the cherry on top for another display of a terrible lack of class, sportsmanship and professionalism.
Add in Andy Roddick’s smarmy condescension (“Why are we out here if that’s there? I’m really starting to get pissed off” – US Open - 2011) and on-court meltdowns (do you have ears? – Australian Open 2008) and John McEnroe’s violent you-aren’t-worthy-of-wiping-my-ass rants at the officials, and you have a group of athletes with a case of the a-holes. These aren’t the only offenders, just the worst ones.
An official needs to stand up to this bully just as someone should have to the little twerp, McEnroe. It always puzzled me as to why a judge or referee would sit there and be spoken to that way when they should have suggested to Mad Mac that unless he learned to talk to him in a civilized way, they would settle their differences later mano et mano.
No Serena, you screwed yourself in ‘09 and this time as well by not having control over your temper. You need to learn you’re not entitled to have everything go your way and how to act when they don’t. You can start by trying to do some growing up in time for turning 30.
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