Monday, May 10, 2010

Tennis: Serena: "I'm definitely not cheating, I'm not Justine Henin"!!!!

During Serena's semi-final lost to Jelena Jankovic, an exact versed replica of what happened between Serena and Henin in the 2003 French Open took place. Here's a bit of a background, in 2003, when Serena was on her 4 grand slam run, she ran into Justine Henin at the FO, and at one particular point, when Serena was serving, Justine Henin raised up her hand, a signal to stop, which means they'll have a re-do. But after Serena missed that serve, Justine refused to admit putting her hand up (despite video evidence proving otherwise), and Serena went on to double fault on her second serve. That was a huge scandal, especially since the crowd somehow got on Serena's case, and thus embarrassing the French internationally. Although both players are cordial nowadays, the press wouldn't let it go most of the time, and it seems like Serena hasn't completely let it go yet either.

This is what happened last week at Rome. When Serena was playing Jelena, it was Jelena who was serving and Serena put up a hand because an audience in the stand was still moving. Jelena didn't see it and served and of course aced (since Serena didn't make a move for it). Jelena was furious and said that ace should've counted, but the umpire saw the hand gesture and ruled a re-do, this got Jelena super mad.

She then went on to win and beat Serena, and I saw the match, when they met each other at the net Serena was saying a bunch of things to Jelena and I couldn't make out what exactly it was. But now that I watch the clip on youtube again, it's quite clear (despite the noise in the background), that she said something along the line of, "I don't cheat, I would never do that to someone else, (lean in to Jelena), I'm no Justine Henin, you understand?"!!

Oh man, if this gets bigger, this could get ugly at the French, the timing is just perfect, obviously someone hasn't let it go, and from Serena's book, we all know how much she hates cheaters. This could get interesting, watch below to see/hear the conversation.

View the video here.

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