What's Up With That? Volume Four
The late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, once remarked “I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.”
On most days his statement would ring true. This day, however, it isn’t. It could have been, and should have been, as the weekend just past was full of the accomplishments of great sports figures from nearly every sport imaginable.
There were incredible football games, mesmerizing baseball contests, exciting auto races, and excellently played tennis matches. However, one of those matches highlighted a failure of man, or woman in this instance; the fiasco now known as the Serena Williams meltdown.
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I’m not one to kick someone when they’re down, so this won’t be a piece delving deeply into how wrong I feel Serena was in her actions. Far too many others have already written ad nauseum on that score. Instead, I’d simply like to summarize the events, put them in perspective to Serena’s career, and call on her to clean up her act.
For those who haven’t read or heard what happened in the Semi-Final matchup between Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters, here’s the scoop.
At five games to six for Clijsters, and with Williams down 15-30 to her in the second set after having lost the first set 4-6, Serena committed a foot fault on her second serve which resulted in her being down Match Point.
Rather than buckle down and attempt to make a dramatic comeback, Williams inexplicably directed a vulgarity-laced tirade at the lineswoman, which, after a consultation with the umpire, resulted in a point penalty for verbal abuse and the end of the match.
It’s reported that Williams tirade toward the lineswoman included the following, ““I swear to God I’m… going to take this… ball and shove it down your… throat, you hear that? I swear to God.”
Williams made a remark following the match that sums up why I’m writing this piece, saying, ““All year I’ve never been foot faulted, and then suddenly in this tournament they keep calling foot faults. I said something that I guess they gave me a point penalty for. Unfortunately it was on match point.”
What I get from that statement is not a recognition from Williams that she may have actually foot-faulted, but a sense of “How dare they?” directed at anyone audacious enough to keep calling foot-faults on the ‘Great’ Serena Williams.
This arrogance is what has turned me off to the younger Williams sister a bit over the years.
There was a time when I was one of her biggest fans. When she burst onto the scene in 1999, entering the top 10 on the WTA world rankings for the first time at 17 after she’d won a few tournaments, including the U.S. Open, she was a fan favorite, and I was one of them.
Back then, Serena, the younger sister of the equally talented Venus Williams, seemed like the bubbly teenager she was, full of fun and jubilation at her success. In a word she was ebullient. She’d finally mastered the sport she’d loved since she was a child, and you could tell she was ecstatic, grateful, and humble. Ecstatic at how well she’d performed, and grateful and humble for the competition she’d been given.
In that first Grand Slam win, she had come a long way, becoming only the second African-American woman, after Althea Gibson, to win a Grand Slam singles tournament. She’d overcome so much that year and in that tournament, and you could see it in her face as she enjoyed her victory.
She knew what a mountain she’d climbed, and recognized that humility was a necessary mixture of a great champion. She humbly accepted her reward after having finally vanquished her nemesis, Martina Hingis, in straight sets, 6-3, 7-6 (4). There was no boastfulness or arrogance in her then.
Sadly, there seems to be far too much of both in her now, and that vanity is precisely what set her up for the fall she took this weekend. There’s an ancient proverb that states pride cometh before the fall, and Serena seems to have forgotten that piece of wisdom.
Again, I bring all this up not to knock Williams, or to kick her while she’s down, but rather to entreat her to use this moment, this tragic set of circumstances, to reflect on her career, and possibly find a way back to that young 17-year-old who was both a champion and humble.
I’m hoping that she’ll be able to find the same fortitude that has served her well in all the great comebacks she’s had in her illustrious career to help her brave this trying time and come out a better person. Hopefully she’ll cast off the surly attitude she’s adopted and once again become the ebullient teenager; in love with the game and grateful to play it.
I doubt she’ll ever read this article, but if she did, my only words directed to her would be:
Serena, you’re better than this, girl, so, What’s Up With That?
You can read other volumes of this series by clicking on the links below
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