The ending to the Serena Williams/Kim Clijsters match at the U.S. Open Saturday night was certainly a strange one. Down 5-6 and 15-30 in the second set, Serena faulted and then was called for a foot fault on her second serve. The foot fault gave Clijsters the point, making it 15-40 and double match point. Since the foot fault was so ill-timed, Serena Williams went off on the line judge who called the fault. The tirade was apparently so harsh that the chair judge docked Williams a point, thereby giving Clijsters the match. Wow. Check out the video of Serena Williams’ tirade:

Now this wasn’t an isolated incident in the match — Serena lost her temper after losing the first set and she smashed her racket, receiving a code violation warning in the process. Even though Serena was in the wrong in that situation, she also clearly foot faulted on that serve but was never called. To me there’s no doubt that both parties were in the wrong here. Serena was obviously high strung throughout the match, upset she was losing, and displayed poor sportsmanship. But Serena (as well as many others) was foot faulting most of the match and how often was she called for it? Calling it in that situation is extremely ticky-tacky. It’s like in football — half the time the defense lines up offsides but they never get flagged. Imagine that being called on a 4th a 1 to decide the game.

As far as Serena’s behavior, it was totally inappropriate and she really crossed the line with the ref, but didn’t tennis let Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe get away with berating refs for years? Heck, don’t they celebrate them for it now? Seems somewhat hypocritical to me. Both the judge and Serena were out of line in this one. Also, here’s the broken racket video:

From showing up at Wimbledon to watch Roger Federer in person, to calling him the greatest ever after Roger tied him by winning the French Open, Pete Sampras has been quite gracious in losing his standing as the player who won the most grand slam events. In fact, Nike rolled out the red carpet in their commercial congratulating Roger Federer for winning his record 15th grand slam:

Yes, that’s John McEnroe, Serena Williams, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and the rest of your friends at Nike congratulating Fed on the record. That’s a pretty sweet cast to assemble but I guess it’s easy when they’re all pulling in paychecks from the swoosh. Oh yeah, and what does Tiger have to say now that Roger’s passed him up?

Earlier this week the Barclays Dubai WTA tournament didn’t let Israeli player Shahar Pe’er play in the tournament. Specifically the United Arab Emirates did not allow her a visa into the country citing security issues because she’s Jewish. The WTA considered canceling the tournament but determined it wouldn’t be fair to all the other players who had already arrived in Dubai and were prepared to play. They also threatened not to return to Dubai next year. Since then, the UAE has said they will grant a visa to Andy Ram, an Israeli male, so he can participate in the men’s tournament next week. I’m particularly perturbed that more tennis players didn’t stand up for Pe’er and threaten to boycott the tournament for their blatantly discriminatory practice. I’m also upset with Venus Williams and Serena Williams for not stepping up when the opportunity presented itself. Here was Venus’ reasoning:

“I have to look at the bigger picture. The big picture is that Shahar Peer didn’t get a chance to play, but making an immediate decision we also have to look at sponsors, fans and everyone who has invested a lot in the tournament.
…
There are so many other people involved. Sponsors are important to us,” Williams said. “We wouldn’t be here without sponsors and we can’t let them down. Whatever we do, we need to do as a team – players, sponsors, tour and whoever – and not all break off in one direction. We are team players.”

What disappoints me is that in a time when Venus had a chance to step up and make a statement against what she knows is wrong, she decided to recite the company line and cite economical reasons. The reason I single out the Williams sisters is because they are two of the biggest names on the tour and because they have experienced racial discrimination in their lives. If anyone would know how badly Pe’er feels and how important it is to speak up at a time like this, I would think it would be them. Moreover, from what I could tell, they were the only American women (and certainly by far the most prominent if there were others) in the tournament, representing a country that stands for equal rights and democracy. If ever there was a time to take a stand, this was it. It’s a shame that they and the other women didn’t speak up.

Serena Williams has won two U.S. Open titles in her career, as well as six other majors. She’s a dominant force in the sport, and seems to play well on hard courts like those in Melbourne and New York. And according to Serena, she probably could have won more at Flushing:

“One year I really ran into a lot of bad luck where I got the worst calls possible. Honestly, I couldn’t even hit a shot because I was so nervous they would call every ball out. That really wasn’t my fault. I probably would have won that year, and I was gonna win that year. Unfortunately it didn’t work out.”

Man, do you hear Raiders still bitching about the tuck rule loss to the Pats, or Miami players about losing to Ohio State? I really haven’t too much. Perhaps just another example of Serena being a poor sport. Or maybe the reporter was just being vindictive towards Serena. Did her comments necessitate the headline it generated? Maybe not — but it certainly is the one that piques the most interest.

By popular demand, we have the All-Hottest Olympians Team. Usually they have the all-tournament teams and stuff, but athletic prowess is not exactly what concerns us in this instance. After all, what else are the Summer Games good for? Anyway, Jimmy Traina at SI Extra Mustard gave us plenty of excellent choices and provided some inspiration for this carefully selected group. Same with Brahsome who put together a hottest 11 Olympians list, and FanIQ’s Olympians that posed in Playboy.

I pretty much had this up and ready to go for the last few days, I was just waiting to sub in a few details like the score she won by. Pretty much everything broke perfectly for Ana Ivanovic to win the French Open title this year, her first major win. First it was the news of Justine Henin retiring, then Maria Sharapova went out early, and the Williams sisters made their exits in the 3rd round leaving the draw wide open for Ana’s taking. Ivanovic capitalized and won the tournament without dropping a set, her first major win. It was great to see Ana get the win especially after the way she performed in her last two finals appearances; she got crushed by Henin last year in the French Open finals, and was handled easily at the Australian by Sharapova. Best part is that the win coincides with Ana’s rise to No. 1 in the world — she’ll have the top ranking when the new ones come out next week.

Now, onto important matters. With a Grand Slam win her pocket and the No. 1 ranking to come, where does this place Ana on the list of hottest top-ranked tennis players of all-time? I say she takes the top spot amongst the No. 1’s easily. After the jump, I have some of her competition …

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