Serena Williams has refused to apologise for her verbal tirade at a line judge during the US Open semi-final against Kim Clijsters in New York.
Williams, the defending champion, lost the match in controversial circumstances after picking up a point penalty for a second code violation on match point against her.
Clijsters had been a set and 6-5 up when Williams was foot-faulted on a second serve to hand the Belgian wild card and 2005 champion match point.
Williams turned towards the line judge who made the call and shouted at her. The line judge then ran up to umpire Louise Engzell to report the incident, which brought tournament referee Brian Earley on to the court. Williams again remonstrated with the line judge over her version of what had happened, at one point telling her: "I never said I would kill you, are you serious?"
Williams had picked up a first code violation for smashing her racket at the end of the first set. After discussing the situation with the player, line judge and chair umpire, Williams was handed a second code violation, the resultant point penalty handing victory to a bemused Clijsters by 6-4, 7-5.
No announcement was made from the chair and the first Clijsters learnt of the result was when Williams walked over to her side of the court to shake her hand.
Williams, facing the press ten minutes after the match, appeared calm but said she could not recall what she had said to the line judge. "I said something that I guess they gave me a point penalty," she said. "Unfortunately, it was on match point.
"I didn't threaten. I didn't say, I don't remember any more. I was in the moment and everyone's fighting for every point.
"I've never been foot faulted [all year] and then suddenly in this tournament they keep calling foot faults. I'm not going to sit here and make an excuse. If I foot fault, I did. It is what it is and that's basically all it was."
Williams, though, said she did not regret losing her temper: "I haven't really thought about it to have any regrets. I try not to live my life saying, 'I wish, I wish' but I was out there and I fought and I tried and I did my best."
Clijsters was confused by the events that handed her the match-winning point. "I was just trying to be focused ahead of match point and I started to get ready to return I saw Serena talking to the linesman over there, but I was too far away to hear what was going on, so I can't really comment on anything that happened out there," she said.
The Belgian, playing only her third tournament since coming out of a 27-month retirement during which time she became a mother, will now face ninth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, of Denmark, in Sunday night's final.
"I came out of the blocks really well, hitting the ball and seeing it really well," Clijsters said. "I kept her on the back foot. She had a few games where she was serving really well, up to 120 miles per hour and I just tried to stay in those games. I'm still in shock."
Clijsters outplayed Williams, whose usually dominant serve deserted the American for much of the match.
Williams also saw her second serve exploited, her unforced error count hit 31 and she had been unable to build on her breaks of serve by allowing Clijsters to break back immediately twice in the second set.
Williams had gone into the match having won seven of their eight previous meetings, although the most recent encounter had been in 2003.
It was the American who had looked most tense as the match got under way, 85 minutes after its scheduled start and more than 24 hours later than the intended match time because of heavy rain.
Williams looked tentative and did not seem to be moving as freely as in previous rounds and the sixth game saw Clijsters go a break up at 4-2. The champion broke straight back but then was broken again as Clijsters took the opening set.
Having netted a forehand, her 14th and final unforced error of the set, the champion demolished her racket with a huge, frustrated smash into the ground that earned her the first code violation.
Williams served to stay in the match at 6-5 down and despite going ahead early in the game, Clijsters fought back before the fateful foot fault intervened.
Wozniacki reached her first grand-slam tournament final with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Yanina Wickmayer, of Belgium, using her speed and steady play to overcome an early break in the final set. "It's a dream come true," she said. "I have nothing to lose."
No comments:
Post a Comment