Is Serena Classless?

Serena has had multiple meltdowns at the US Open over the years, always when she is losing in a late round match. This last one, last year, was disgusting though. She completely ruined the joy of the winner, younger Naomi Osaka. Serena made the entire thing about herself... she claimed sexism, in fact. Men get warnings and in fact a year earlier a man was banned from two Grand Slam tournaments for poor behavior.

Serena whined about "being a mother" as if this has anything to do with cheating... her coach ADMITTED that he coached her in that match. She whined that she is picked on and would never be rude... she threatened to shove the ball down the throat of the line judge in 2011 for making the foot fault call. Serena then, at this last tournament, says, "[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]"I don’t want to be rude. She played well. Let’s make this the best moment we can, let’s not boo any more,” said Williams. Then it was Osaka’s turn, and she looked more devastated than delighted. She even wound up apologising for having beaten the crowd’s favourite in scenes that surely have little precedent in this or any other sport.

She played well? Poor Naomi was crying about not giving the fans what they wanted... a Serena win.

This is kinda old but they just did the Serena vs the Umpire on ESPN so it bugged me all over again...

Bodhisattva said:

Serena has had multiple meltdowns at the US Open over the years, always when she is losing in a late round match. This last one, last year, was disgusting though. She completely ruined the joy of the winner, younger Naomi Osaka. Serena made the entire thing about herself... she claimed sexism, in fact. Men get warnings and in fact a year earlier a man was banned from two Grand Slam tournaments for poor behavior.

Serena whined about "being a mother" as if this has anything to do with cheating... her coach ADMITTED that he coached her in that match. She whined that she is picked on and would never be rude... she threatened to shove the ball down the throat of the line judge in 2011 for making the foot fault call. Serena then, at this last tournament, says, "[FONT="] [/FONT]"I don’t want to be rude. She played well. Let’s make this the best moment we can, let’s not boo any more,” said Williams. Then it was Osaka’s turn, and she looked more devastated than delighted. She even wound up apologising for having beaten the crowd’s favourite in scenes that surely have little precedent in this or any other sport.

She played well? Poor Naomi was crying about not giving the fans what they wanted... a Serena win.

This is kinda old but they just did the Serena vs the Umpire on ESPN so it bugged me all over again...

Click to expand...

Just another pampered elitist athlete who thinks its all about them.

When it comes to smacking that little yellow ball, She's in a class all by herself. She can also be the Jimmy Connors of females on the tennis court at times.

I have mixed views on this. BTW if you want to see some fireworks-the opening Night match tomorrow is Serena vs Shriekapova. Those two HATE each other ever since Shriekapova snaked away Serena's former Boy toy-Grigor Dimotrov.

I watch tennis constantly. Spend big Bucks to have a front row box at the huge Western and Southern Open-reportedly the toughest tournament in the USA because, unlike the US Open and its draw of 128, you have to be in the top forty to get into the main draw (its a draw of 56 but several wild cards and a bunch of qualifiers get into the draw). I have Serena Tank matches in the past (Which is why Nadal is my favorite Tennis player-he plays every point like its match point at the French open). However, IMHO, Serena is the finest female athlete in modern history. Other top players have one maybe two weapons-Ivanovic had a great forehand, Stosur a great kick serve, Martina the best backhand volley, Seles, the best service return of her era, and Graf-awesome court coverage and a huge forehand. Serena is top five in everything.

That being said, she is a prima donna and some of her comments are contrived nonsense. She crushes some nobody and she acts like she was lucky. She plays world #35 and she claims she is the underdog.

Her meltdowns against Kim Clijsters and Osaka at the US Open were two of the low points in her storied career. and in both cases, those two ladies were beating her, and she cheated them both out of a win without people doing the "what if" nonsense

Logician Man said:

When it comes to smacking that little yellow ball, She's in a class all by herself.

Click to expand...

yep, Cincinnati didn't start having elite ladies until say about 14 years ago, so I never saw Seles or Graff in person, but having seen

Davenport
Stosur
Ivanovic
Hingis
Jankovic
Wozniacki
Azarenka
Dinara Safina
and every other #1 since about 2005, including Clijsters, Sharapova, Halep, etc I can say Serena is the very best ever

TurtleDude said:

yep, Cincinnati didn't start having elite ladies until say about 14 years ago, so I never saw Seles or Graff in person, but having seen

Davenport
Stosur
Ivanovic
Hingis
Jankovic
Wozniacki
Azarenka
Dinara Safina
and every other #1 since about 2005, including Clijsters, Sharapova, Halep, etc I can say Serena is the very best ever

Click to expand...

The Bengals would be proud to have her as a linebacker. I'm just north of 6'3", and I wouldn't have messed with her, even in my hay days.

Serena is without a doubt the best woman tennis player to date.

The question is she "classless" is IMO unfair. Has her behavior been less than wonderful at times? Yes. Do athletes sometimes behave badly in competition? Yes.

Has she been overall a gracious and committed competitor? Yes. Did John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors ever behave as badly? Yes, often. Were John and Jimmy ever

considered classless and subject to endless criticism? No, it actually helped their careers.

Logician Man said:

The Bengals would be proud to have her as a linebacker. I'm just north of 6'3", and I wouldn't have messed with her, even in my hay days.

Click to expand...

someone joked that she intimidates other ladies in the locker room by popping tennis balls with her ass cheeks!.

Yes, she is classless.

Great player, amazing success, and paved the way for many. Does not excuse awful etiquette when things are not going her way, but the bigger issue is she will be excused where others would not for the exact same behavior.

TurtleDude said:

someone joked that she intimidates other ladies in the locker room by popping tennis balls with her ass cheeks!.

Click to expand...

:lol:

TurtleDude said:

someone joked that she intimidates other ladies in the locker room by popping tennis balls with her ass cheeks!.

Click to expand...

Now that "someone" IS an example of classless.

JMR said:

Serena is without a doubt the best woman tennis player to date.

The question is she "classless" is IMO unfair. Has her behavior been less than wonderful at times? Yes. Do athletes sometimes behave badly in competition? Yes.

Has she been overall a gracious and committed competitor? Yes. Did John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors ever behave as badly? Yes, often. Were John and Jimmy ever

considered classless and subject to endless criticism? No, it actually helped their careers.

Click to expand...

I considered both of them assholes... but not classless. They did not ruin somebody like Naomi. They did not act like, "c'mon now fans... I lost but the winner, she played OK, so let's stop booing the **** out of her win for a few seconds and stop making this about me"... THAT is what makes Serena classless.

And I would argue that Steffi and Martina could have beaten her.

JMR said:

Serena is without a doubt the best woman tennis player to date.

The question is she "classless" is IMO unfair. Has her behavior been less than wonderful at times? Yes. Do athletes sometimes behave badly in competition? Yes.

Has she been overall a gracious and committed competitor? Yes. Did John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors ever behave as badly? Yes, often. Were John and Jimmy ever

considered classless and subject to endless criticism? No, it actually helped their careers.

Click to expand...

you raise an interesting point. When he was younger, McEnroe's rantings were based on two things

1) he had great eyes and he often saw balls in that line judges called out or vice versa and he had valid complaints.

2) he often engaged in his antics to throw other guys off. Nastase was another expert at that antic. Connors too but both of those two Americans had a sense of fairness too. One time conners was playing the best guy to ever come out of western Africa-a guy named Odizor circa 1986. Nduka got a bad call and hit the ball up in the air at the ATP tournament near my home. The Umpire gave him a conduct code violation. So Connors went over to the umpire and asked how far the ball had to go to be a violation-because connors had hit one up in the air before and had not been assessed a point. And Connors started hitting the ball further in further up in the air-and amazingly catching it with his racket even though it was coming down from 50-100-150 feet up. The umpire was sort of flummoxed by this. So Connors goes to serve and he's up 30 Love due to NO losing the second point due to the ump. SO connors hits both his first and second serve out of the stadium and yells 30-15.

McEnroe's nose candy got the better of him later-which led to him getting defaulted at the Australian in the late 80s.

I believe Serena's antics are purely tactical. BTW she is well liked by most of the other top ladies-and some like Wozniacki are very close personal friends. Serena was the one who really saved Wozniacki when CW was at her lowest point after being dumped by her golf pro Fiance

Bodhisattva said:

I considered both of them assholes... but not classless. They did not ruin somebody like Naomi. They did not act like, "c'mon now fans... I lost but the winner, she played OK, so let's stop booing the **** out of her win for a few seconds and stop making this about me"... THAT is what makes Serena classless.

And I would argue that Steffi and Martina could have beaten her.

Click to expand...

Stefi on her best day-yes if Serena was having an OK day. Most of the time, Serena would pin Graff on her backhand and pick that slice apart. Martina-nope. Serena has the most lethal service return in history. Martina rushing the net would be tough and from the baseline, Serena's power would eat her for lunch

JMR said:

Now that "someone" IS an example of classless.

Click to expand...

I will let that lady pro know that next summer-assuming she makes it back to Cincinnati :mrgreen:

I'd criticise, but that would be racist, so...

Bodhisattva said:

I considered both of them assholes... but not classless. They did not ruin somebody like Naomi. They did not act like, "c'mon now fans... I lost but the winner, she played OK, so let's stop booing the **** out of her win for a few seconds and stop making this about me"... THAT is what makes Serena classless.

And I would argue that Steffi and Martina could have beaten her.

Click to expand...

I think that in their own time both Steffi and Martina were the best ever women players. I think Serena in her prime would have beaten them. They just keep getting better.

Having a public meltdown is completely classless. She's tarnished her own image.

trixare4kids said:

Having a public meltdown is completely classless. She's tarnished her own image.

Click to expand...

The meltdown was classless. On that day she behaved in a classless manner. That does not make her classless. There is a difference.

JMR said:

I think that in their own time both Steffi and Martina were the best ever women players. I think Serena in her prime would have beaten them. They just keep getting better.

Click to expand...

Yep, people don't realize that Martina is not a very big lady. Steffi has about 4 inches and 20 pounds on her. With the new rackets and the topspin power, Martina's net rushing style would be ill prepared for the game Serena deploys.

Once again, while I have had Steffi sit in my box (when Andre was playing) I never saw her play live. The only woman I can recall who came close to Serena's pure athleticism was Kim Clijsters (which is not suprising-her father was a world class football player and her mother was Belgium's top gymnast for years). Svetlana Kutzenova was close-she also had great genes(Mother 6x world cycling champion-father-pro cyclist and coach, brother an Olympic medalist in the 96 games-cycling) but she didn't have the power Serena has

JMR said:

The meltdown was classless. On that day she behaved in a classless manner. That does not make her classless. There is a difference.

Click to expand...

I don't know about yours but my reply answers the O/P's question. What did you think I was talking about? How she behaves at the grocery story?

trixare4kids said:

I don't know about yours but my reply answers the O/P's question. What did you think I was talking about? How she behaves at the grocery story?

Click to expand...

The poll asks if she is classless, yes or no. It did not ask did she ever behave in a classless way. Serena acts with class 99% of the time she is on the court. Therefore she is not classless. Doesn't seem hard to comprehend.

JMR said:

The poll asks if she is classless, yes or no. It did not ask did she ever behave in a classless way. Serena acts with class 99% of the time she is on the court. Therefore she is not classless. Doesn't seem hard to comprehend.

Click to expand...

I'd agree with this. Yes, I have seen her tank-with her record, another 900 point tournament and half a million is not all that important to her with the US Open a week after the big Premier event in Ohio. but she is very well liked by most of the other top women and that really says a lot. Some of her biggest rivals-like Caroline Wozniacki (who is one of the classiest women to ever be ranked # 1) and Ana Ivanovic (who is universally liked as well) really like Serena/ I believe she was the Matron of Honor at Caroline's recent wedding

TurtleDude said:

Yep, people don't realize that Martina is not a very big lady. Steffi has about 4 inches and 20 pounds on her. With the new rackets and the topspin power, Martina's net rushing style would be ill prepared for the game Serena deploys.

Once again, while I have had Steffi sit in my box (when Andre was playing) I never saw her play live. The only woman I can recall who came close to Serena's pure athleticism was Kim Clijsters (which is not suprising-her father was a world class football player and her mother was Belgium's top gymnast for years). Svetlana Kutzenova was close-she also had great genes(Mother 6x world cycling champion-father-pro cyclist and coach, brother an Olympic medalist in the 96 games-cycling) but she didn't have the power Serena has

Click to expand...

You are arguing era's like a person that does not understand how to argue era's. Martina would have today's gear (racket) and training regime's. They would evolve into today's game.

JMR said:

The poll asks if she is classless, yes or no. It did not ask did she ever behave in a classless way. Serena acts with class 99% of the time she is on the court. Therefore she is not classless. Doesn't seem hard to comprehend.

Click to expand...

I have found that people are who they really are when they are at their worst, (not a one off either). When there is repeated stress the way a person acts is who they are at their core... (again, not one or two or even three times... but repetitively). She does this A LOT.

Additionally, she IMMEDIATELY went to whining about her being a mother and that this was happening to her because "she is a woman". She threatened to shove a tennis ball down the throat of the line judge... that is violence and makes me wonder about her as a person behind the camera's/.