OT: Roberta Vinci Beats Serena Williams in US Open Semis

Submitted by bluebyyou on

Sorry to post this on a Friday before a game, but a major and totally surprising piece of sports news.

Roberta Vinci, a  32 year old (300:1 odds) Italian beat Serena Williams in the US Open, denying Williams the chance of a calendar Gran Slam, last done in 1988 by Steffi Graf.

http://espn.go.com/tennis/usopen15/story/_/id/13631724/serena-williams-…

 

bgoblue02

September 11th, 2015 at 3:59 PM ^

been to the US open a bunch of times and seen her (and her sister play); when they win and are interviewed they are very blah about the whole thing.  

Every winner usually autographs three balls and knocks them into the stands; most players try to bash the heck out of it for the upper deck vs. the williams sisters just lob them into the front row; picky stuff I realize.  

I think she is a great tennis player but its more fun to root for someone who is fun to root for

JClay

September 11th, 2015 at 4:06 PM ^

She threatened to stuff a ball down a linewoman's "fucking throat" on national television, for one. She pouts and sulks every time she loses. 

There was one time a few years back where she was basically only playing the majors and had just won one of them and in her postmatch press conference, she openly lamblasted another player, I think Azarenka (EDIT: nope, Dinara Safina), who was ranked #1 in the world at the time, saying she should be #1 instead of her. (As background for those who don't know, tennis has a weird ranking system where people accumulate points during the year to incentivize people to play as many tournaments as possible and to dissuade people from doing what Serena was doing which was to just show up for large tournaments.) And she just openly insulted this lady -- not the system -- listing the tournaments she had won and laughing about how inconsequential they were. And this is how she reacted AFTER WINNING A MAJOR.

She's admittedly one of the top 3-4 of all-time, but her personality is nearly impossible to like.

lilpenny1316

September 11th, 2015 at 4:08 PM ^

I always heard they were pretty cordial to each other.  There was even this quote from back in May.

 

"Vika and I are really close," Serena said after beating Azarenka 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. "We text each other. She's a really, really good person. I really like her. I'm obsessed with her outfit. I told her, 'God, I love those shorts.' So she gave me a pair. She promised me a pair, and she gave me a pair.



"We talked about this a long time ago. We said, we're going to leave everything on the court, we're going to give 500 percent and when we're off the court, we'll be really cool."

I'm not calling BS on whatever insults you mention, but I don't remember that. Also, John McEnroe is a beloved figure and that dude was the epitome of an easy person to dislike.

lilpenny1316

September 11th, 2015 at 4:39 PM ^

She can be huge dick.  I already knew that.  But I can't blame Serena for ripping the system.  I mean, they were asking her about her shirt (And yes I'm not looking at her titles) and the #1/2 rankings.  Seems only natural to compare resumes.  Coaches do it all the time when trying to lobby their teams into either the BCS title game or the CFP.

JClay

September 11th, 2015 at 4:49 PM ^

Yeah, but she's not in a sport where there's anything to lobby. No one seriously thought Safina was better than her. She gains nothing by doing it other than, apparently, self-satisfaction at embarassing publicly another person. When you go "she worked hard to get where she is. She won Rome and Venice and ahahahahahahahaha!" you're being, as you put it, a huge dick. That's why many people don't like her.

lilpenny1316

September 11th, 2015 at 4:10 PM ^

Silly stuff.  Poor losers, not dedicate to tennis b/c too focused on their fashion design careers.  Really petty stuff.  Maybe I chalked up their attitude to Daddy Williams and some unneccessary criticism on the off-court stuff and gave them a free pass.

Magnum P.I.

September 11th, 2015 at 3:12 PM ^

Wow. Total choke job by Serena. I've never seen a legendary athlete go into a shell under pressure like that. 

Vinci made some great, free-swinging shots, though. 

bluebyyou

September 11th, 2015 at 3:15 PM ^

I was sitting at home working and wanted to record some of tomorrow's games and opened up to this match and started watching....something I would ordinarily never do on a Friday afternoon. 

Sometimes you get lucky and small piece of sports history lands in your lap.

As someone said, the interview with Vinci after the match was unusual to say the least and incredibly entertaining.

skurnie

September 11th, 2015 at 3:24 PM ^

100% deserved to win that...she played a flawless third set. I wish Serena would have pulled it off but Vinci played outstanding. Tickets for tomorrow's final went from $271 to $10 within 10 minutes of that match ending.

Also, her post-match interview was great.