US Open Tennis 2011: Serena Williams' Legacy Won't Be Tarnished by Outburst

Serena Williams had a little umpire directed rant in the US Open finals. So what? What else is new? This is tennis, where umpire abuse is celebrated. 

To be clear, this outburst was nothing compared to her viscous rant from the 2009 US Open. This was just a run of the mill tennis rant that is commonplace in the sport.

Despite the mundane nature of this incident, it has drawn the ire of many people. Some are going as far as to say it will stain her legacy?

Like tennis analyst Kevin Mitchell who expressed the following take on guardian.co.uk:

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"When Williams stole Sam Stosur's golden moment in the final of the US Open at Flushing Meadows on Sunday night, she not only tarnished her own legacy, she held her sport in contempt."

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This is absurd. Williams stole Stosur's spotlight simply by being her opponent. She is the sport's biggest star. Win or lose, Williams was going to be the story in this match. She cannot control that.

Had the roles been reversed, no one would have been complaining that Stocsur's rant stole the spotlight from Williams because it would not have stolen the spotlight to begin with.

The average tennis and sports fan simply doesn't care what Stosur does, and this rant would have drawn very little attention had it been authored by a women's tennis player not named Serena Williams. 

There is only one thing that will stain Serena's legacy stemming from this match, and that is her loss. Serena looked like a lock to win this finals match. She was at her dominating best rolling into it, and seemed unbeatable.

Had she won, this would've gone down as one of the most dominating runs in US Open history. Instead, it will stick out on her resume as a failure, but certainly not because of her rant.