Serena Williams and her sister Venus Williams lost their doubles match to Liezel Huber and Chan Hao-Ching at the first round of the China Open on Monday. As SI.com’s Beyond the Baseline pointed out, this is not something that happens very often. It was just the second first-round loss in doubles play for Serena and Venus in 29 tournaments.
The way they lost was even more frustrating, and Serena’s racquet paid the price for it. The Williams sisters lost a 4-1 lead in the second set and failed to convert on two match points in the tiebreak. Then, Serena double-faulted on match point for Huber and Chan. She proceeded to demolish her racquet in anger.
As we witnessed at the Australian Open earlier this year, Serena can smash the hell out of a racquet better than any tennis player in the world. She didn’t abuse her wand quite as much as Marcos Baghdatis abused his at last year’s Australian Open, but it was impressive nonetheless. Classic Serena.
