This photo is the memory I have of Serena Williams from 2009. She is shaking hands with Kim Clijsters of Belgium after Williams was disqualified by a foot fault during the Women’s Singles Semifinal match of the 2009 U.S. Open on September 12, 2009. Williams was given a point penalty, which happened to be match point, after threatening to shove a tennis ball down the throat of a lines woman.
Apparently that is not what the U.S. newspaper editors remember about her, because Williams was given the honor of AP’s Female Athlete of the Year. In fact, she was the runaway winner, receiving 66 of 158 votes cast. No other candidate got more than 18 votes.
The award was not totally undeserved from a performance standpoint, since Williams won two Grand Slams, set a single-season earnings record and finished the year at No. 1 in the rankings. But Serena’s 2009 will be more remembered for that U.S. Open tirade rather than her successes. To reward her for a season which included the ugliest tennis incident of the decade, has been described by some sports writers as “a distinct blunder by voters.” Her tennis year wasn’t nearly great enough to outweigh her behavior on the court, particularly when there still doesn’t seem to be any feelings of regret on the part of Serena.
Of her win, despite the incident, she said:
People realize that I’m a great player, and one moment doesn’t define a person’s career. And I was right, for the most part: It wasn’t right the way I reacted – I never said it was – but I was right about the call.”
It appears she learned nothing from the incident. She also noted that the outburst, which resulted in a record fine and two-year probationary period at Grand Slam tournaments, “got a lot more people excited about tennis.” “We can attribute the strength and the growth of women’s tennis a great deal to her,” WTA chairman and CEO Stacey Allaster said in a telephone interview. “She is a superstar.”
This vote wasn’t a comment on Serena’s behavior, however. It was a vote by default due to an exceptionally bad slate of 2009 candidates. This award tends to be dominated by tennis players, golfers or Olympic athletes. Since none of the latter two provided any dominant athlete this year, the best tennis player got the nod. Another tennis player, Kim Clijsters, was 3rd with 16 votes.
Williams also won the AP award in 2002, a seven-year gap that is the longest between AP Female Athlete of the Year honors since golf’s Patty Berg won in 1943 and 1955. Williams said, “I’m just happy and blessed to even be playing seven years later. All this is a bonus, really,” Williams said. “In 2002, I just was really dominant, and I think in 2009, I just brought that back. I kind of became that player again.”
My question is, how did a horse get on the list? The runner up as Female Athlete of the Year was Zenyatta, the first female horse to ever win the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Zenyatta finished with 18 votes. As Chris Chase wrote on Yahoo! Sports, “Just think how well Zenyatta could have done if she had neighed at a track official.”
Since when are horses considered athletes? It is a sorry state of athletics when there aren’t enough deserving humans that we have to start voting for animals. What’s coming next year? Here’s my prediction: “Pidjinx, a silver-gray veteran pigeon, will be named female athlete of the year for laying the biggest pile of poop on a New York City statue!”
I guess even though Williams was naughty, and not nice, Santa came still came to her house with a gift. What else could you call it? She certainly didn’t earn it for personality. And isn’t that what Santa goes by when he votes for “nice” athletes of the year?
