Posted by BESS: Early Friday morning I made a point to get up and watch the highly anticipated third round show-down between Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams. In the end it wasn't nearly as close as we had all hoped, with Maria winning handily. But there were flashes of brilliance between them--glimpses of what we were all hoping the entire match would be like.
I am just so happy to see them both playing up to their abilities. I mean, Venus could have played better, but she didn't seem hampered by her Sjogren's Syndrome like she has been at past tournaments. And it's nice to see Maria continuing to play well after those years of struggling to come back from shoulder surgery. Both of them deserve strong play like this.
I hated that one of them would have to leave the tournament so early, but since I picked Maria to win the whole thing, I cheered her victory.
Let's talk about her winning scream, though. Described on Twitter as a "primal scream," it did seem odd. And somewhat unnecessary. And potentially a bit offensive.
Some commentators questioned how appropriate it was; others said it showed how much it means to Maria to beat either Williams sister. I'm going with the former. If it had been a close match, I could have understood it. But it wasn't that close. At all. And I found it disrespectful.
As others have noted online, Serena surely took note. If you read between the lines of her post-match quote, she is indeed peeved. Someone asked her what she said to Venus after it ended. Serena said something like, "What I said had nothing to do with tennis. I was complaining about someone who annoyed me."
Hee hee. YIKES. She'll be sure to exact her revenge should she and Maria make the final. And I, for one, would not want to be on the receiving end of Serena's wrath.
We've seen that play out on a tennis court before. It wutn't pretty.
Godspeed, Maria.
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