Serena Williams - ALWAYS classy in defeat

Said Williams today, after a loss to Virginie Razzano, whose husband/coach died shortly before last year's French Open: "I know of her story and her husband. We all have stories. I mean, I almost died, and Venus is struggling herself. So, you know, it's life. You know, it just depends on how you deal with it. She obviously is dealing with it really well."

She never fails to be classy in the pressers. Never change, Serena.

 

OTOH, I would rather have an athlete sound bitchy and dismissive after a loss than bland and phony.

 

That's not the point.

 

Sure it is. Bitchy quotes are good for business.

 

I would pay money for a video compilation of Serena's greatest hits, but nothing will ever top the death wish/ball-stuff-down-throat of the line judge.

She's almost Barkley-like to me. I'm not talking about her weight, I'm talking about the fact that she can get away with saying stuff nobody else could.

 

Barkley is likable. Serena is a bitch.

 

I don't know the backstory, and I really don't care enough to google it, but her husband/coach WHAT shortly before last year's French Open?

 

Died.

My bad.

 

OK, I'll be that guy. Without knowing the question that was asked to her, and without being able to read body language or hear inflection, what's so bad about what Serena said? It looks like she was complimentary towards Razzano. What more did you want her to say?

 

My suggestion: If you're going to answer such a question sincerely perhaps it would be best to avoid turning the answer into a recap of YOUR life and YOUR ills.

But now that I think of it, that sort of response IS sincere for Serena.

 

I would be interested in hearing what the actual question was and how it came up in the first place.

It was more than a year ago. I can definitely understand Razzano being asked about it, but what exactly did they ask Serena?

 

Well, I still don't know what the question was. (The New York Times says she was "asked about Razzano and her backstory." That's as much as I can find with some quick Googling.) But I don't think her answer was a recap of her life. I read it as Serena saying, basically, "Life is hard; bad stuff happens to all of us. What's important is how you respond. And Razzano has responded well." Is it so offensive that she referred to her and her sister's (not insignificant) health problems -- a pulmonary embolism and a rare auto-immune disease, respectively -- in the course of her answer?