The name Serena literally translates as The Peaceful One – not, as one of it’s more notorious owners fondly imagines, The Earful One.
The truly appalling, there is no other word for it, display by Serena Williams at the US Open will haunt tennis forever.
Do not, at your peril, compare it to the amusing antics of Mcenroe or Nastase. Williams took it to another level – there was a menace, an evil intent about her attack on the line judge, which went beyond an emotional outburst. Under pressure, she had reverted to type. She looks evil, she plays evilly, and when push came to shove she revealed herself in her true colours – an evil woman so out of place in a genteel sport, even in this day and age of grunters and munters.
If the tennis authorities do not carry out the ultimate sanction – she should be banned for life from pro tennis – then they are in effect endorsing it, and as such we will breed generation after generation of violently abusive tennis players who will push the envelope further and further until one carries a gun on court and blows away a hapless umpire or errant ball girl.
To her credit, I think it was a moment of madness born out of the absolute will to win – once the issue had been resolved, and the match lost, she departed with a minimum of fuss, pausing only to congratulate the bemused Clijsters. That in itself may the most damning evidence of all – her tacit acknowledgement that she had crossed the boundary.
Clijsters went on to cap a fairytale comeback by winning the tournament, but unless Williams is ejected from the game forthwith, I suspect it is her behaviour which we will remember for years to come, as we stand appalled by its legacy.
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