c******k 发帖数: 8998 | 1 For verbally abusing a chair umpire and making a mockery of tennis on its
grandest stage, Serena Williams earned a paltry $2,000 fine from gutless U.S
. Open officials afraid to rein in the despicable behavior of the game's
biggest star.
She will receive no tournament ban and her probation, which had been in
effect since her infamous 2009 outburst at the U.S. Open, has been lifted.
To call this a slap on the wrist would be overstating it. The fine was more
like an imperceptible shake of the head.
Consider: Serena took home $1.4 million from the U.S. Open, a total which
includes the prize money she won for being a finalist and her bonus for
winning the U.S. Open hard court series. The $2,000 fine represents 0.14
percent of her total haul.
In total at the Open, Serena spent 527 minutes on the court, earning $2,656
per minute. Essentially, she paid for that $2,000 fine in 45 seconds of
court time. That's as long as it takes to play a single point.
As Courtney Nguyen of SI.com pointed out, two women's players were fined the
same amount earlier in the tournament for illegal coaching. Yeah, that
makes sense. Telling a chair umpire in a nationally televised match to watch
out when she walks down a hallway and getting a hand signal from your coach
is pretty much six of one, half dozen of the other.
Way to send a message that such behavior isn't to be tolerated, USTA. You
wonder why Serena keeps humiliating lines officials who make $250 per day?
Because your cowardly organization looks the other way every time she does
it. | c******k 发帖数: 8998 | 2 “I have no doubt that she has learned from this incident and that we will
never see her act in this manner again,” said Stacey Allaster, the chief
executive of the women’s tour, in a statement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/sports/tennis/01serena.html | c******k 发帖数: 8998 | 3 Grand Slam administrator Bill Babcock's ruling was released Monday, and he
said Williams faces a ``probationary period'' at tennis' four major
championships in 2010 and 2011. If she has another ``major offense'' at a
GrandSlam tournament in that time, the fine would increase to $175,000 and
she would be barred from the following U.S. Open.
``But if she does not have another offense in the next two years, the
suspension is lifted,'' Babcock said in a telephone interview from London. |
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