Congratulations to Juan Martin Del Porto, the new US Open Champion for 2009. At just 20, he has beaten Roger Federer who last lost a US Open match five years ago. The reign of the king came to an end when Del Porto magnificently outplayed and out gunned Federer in five breathtaking sets. Maybe we have a real challenger on our hands to put in a good fight against the Nadal/ Federer domination of world tennis. By the way, en-route to winning the US Open, Del Porto also beat Rafael Nadal.
Today’s blog however is not about Del Porto’s historic victory though. My blog is rarely about success! Today’s blog is about the shameful performance of Serena Williams at the US Open, and I’m not talking about the quality of her tennis. During her semi-finals match, she experienced an out of character mind explosion when she was foot faulted by a lines person and started abusing and threatening the lines woman with profanity laced-tirade which John Mc Enroe would have been proud of. Serena raised the racquet to the lines person's face and swung it in such a threatening manner that after the match the lines person said she felt genuinely threatened by Serena’s gestures.
The shameful part of the whole saga is not that Serena lost her composure and her cool. It’s not that her outburst led to her disqualification and semi-final loss to Kim Clijsters. It’s the fact that she found people’s reaction to her on court behaviour as funny and somewhat quizzical, like “what are you guys so uptight about?” Serena failed to understand the severity of her actions and chose to treat it as a joke, as if she did nothing wrong and it was a whole lot of misunderstanding. One day later she held a press conference to finally apologise to the lines person and said something to the effect that she wanted to hug her. Now if you want quizzical, not many things beat that kind of talk. I’m afraid Serena, you’re going to have to practice a bit more on delivering your apologies to make it more believable.
Weird as her apology was, one would have been led to believe she had learnt her lesson but to me her apology was as insincere as I’ve ever seen any apology to be and she only did it after a wrath of public opinion criticising her for her indifferent attitude towards the whole thing. There was talk about the irreparable damage this would do to her reputation and possibly affecting her relationship with her sponsors. There you have it ladies and gentlemen, I’ve said it. I think Serena forced herself to apologise because of the potential damage this would have had on her commercial endorsements, which is why the apology came out so seemingly difficult and awkward and painful for all to see, much like talking on the phone while pooping a big one. But then again, are we surprised at all? Think back on my previous blog about stinking celebrity behaviours and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Read it here:
Today’s blog however is not about Del Porto’s historic victory though. My blog is rarely about success! Today’s blog is about the shameful performance of Serena Williams at the US Open, and I’m not talking about the quality of her tennis. During her semi-finals match, she experienced an out of character mind explosion when she was foot faulted by a lines person and started abusing and threatening the lines woman with profanity laced-tirade which John Mc Enroe would have been proud of. Serena raised the racquet to the lines person's face and swung it in such a threatening manner that after the match the lines person said she felt genuinely threatened by Serena’s gestures.
The shameful part of the whole saga is not that Serena lost her composure and her cool. It’s not that her outburst led to her disqualification and semi-final loss to Kim Clijsters. It’s the fact that she found people’s reaction to her on court behaviour as funny and somewhat quizzical, like “what are you guys so uptight about?” Serena failed to understand the severity of her actions and chose to treat it as a joke, as if she did nothing wrong and it was a whole lot of misunderstanding. One day later she held a press conference to finally apologise to the lines person and said something to the effect that she wanted to hug her. Now if you want quizzical, not many things beat that kind of talk. I’m afraid Serena, you’re going to have to practice a bit more on delivering your apologies to make it more believable.
Weird as her apology was, one would have been led to believe she had learnt her lesson but to me her apology was as insincere as I’ve ever seen any apology to be and she only did it after a wrath of public opinion criticising her for her indifferent attitude towards the whole thing. There was talk about the irreparable damage this would do to her reputation and possibly affecting her relationship with her sponsors. There you have it ladies and gentlemen, I’ve said it. I think Serena forced herself to apologise because of the potential damage this would have had on her commercial endorsements, which is why the apology came out so seemingly difficult and awkward and painful for all to see, much like talking on the phone while pooping a big one. But then again, are we surprised at all? Think back on my previous blog about stinking celebrity behaviours and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Read it here:
These guys are too good to do any wrong and when they do, they poop out an apology as difficult as it may be and think that would be the end of that until their agents tell them to go into damage control. So an apology such as that offered by Serena Williams should be given the treatment it deserves, disregarded and discarded into the insincere, meaningless dumpster.
