Williams Apologizes for Offensive Comments about Sharapova
Serena Williams has been in the news recently and not for her play on the court. She gained media attention when she commented about a rape case involving high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio in a profile piece in Rolling Stone. Serena immediately backtracked and apologized publicly and privately to the victim’s family for those comments.
But in that same interview, Serena appeared to take shots at fellow tennis pro Maria Sharapova.
The comments in question are about Sharapova’s love-life. Serena said that a, “top-five player who is now in love … begins every interview with ‘I’m so happy. I’m so lucky’ — it’s so boring. She’s still not going to be invited to the cool parties. And, hey, if she wants to be with the guy with a black heart, go for it.”
The author of the piece, Stephen Rodrick, surmised that Serena was referring to Sharapova, who is dating Grigor Dimitrov, who is reportedly one of Serena’s exes.
Sharapova fired back, commenting about Williams’ rumored love interest, her coach Patrick Mouratoglu.
“If she wants to talk about something personal, maybe she should talk about her relationship and her boyfriend that was married and is getting a divorce and has kids,” Sharapova said. “Talk about other things, but not draw attention to other things. She has so much in her life, many positives, and I think that’s what it should be about.”
In her pre-Wimbledon news conference, Serena apologized publicly and said that she apologized to Sharapova in person as well.
“I personally talked to Maria at the player party, incidentally,” Serena said. “I said, ‘Look, I want to personally apologize to you if you are offended by being brought into my situation. I want to take this moment to just pour myself, be open, say I’m very sorry for this whole situation.’ ”
Williams and Sharapova are on opposite sides of the Wimbledon bracket so they would meet in the final if both advanced that far. If the two square off in the final, then look for this story to get brought up again.
