The USTA has offered an apology for the handling of Dinara Safina's third round match which saw the top lady baller ousted by Petra Kvitova.
The Russian, whose match was first up that evening, was none too pleased about being moved to Louis Armstrong so James Blake's match could be started.
According to WTA tour CEO Stacy Allaster,
The U.S.T.A. has acknowledged they should have notified Dinara and the players much earlier in the process of what was going to happen. I think they’ve apologized for that and I think that what’s most important now is we move forward. They’re going to look at their procedures and try to make sure that doesn’t happen again.Serena Williams was asked about the incident in her post-match presser and came to D's defense:
Q. Safina, because the day session ran long, her match was supposed to be the first on at night on Ashe got moved to Louis Armstrong. She was disappointed in that. She thought it was disrespectful that the women's match got moved. Any opinion on that? If placed in a situation like that, would you be upset?
SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, why didn't they move the men's match again? They were second on.
Q. She said they told her they wanted to give fans the chance to see a best of five set match and they moved her to Armstrong.
SERENA WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think that was just a good thing to tell her to silence her at that moment. But I have to take her side on this. I think that she was first on. She should've played at 7:00. They should have moved the men's match. Simple as that, that's how it should be done. If you're supposed to play a match, you're supposed to play it, and then you move the next match.
Firstly, nice to see the ladies' stick up for each other here even amongst all the smack talk that's been going around.
It was a total slap in the face to the top seed Dinara and I'm glad the USTA acknowledged their unfortunate mistake.
(Photo: Getty)
Dinara has to eat all this bs since she's ranked #1. It's a disgrace for all people involved but herself. I was shocked when I heard the decision in the first place. To apologize now is .. well.. not enough. This is not especially against women's tennis but against women like Dinara.. whatever that means in the "DECIDERS" point of view. Fuckers.
ReplyDeleteSO lame to move Dinara's match. She's number ONE and deserves the chance to be first on at Ashe. I understand they have a huge frustrating thing to have to pick one or the other to please the millions of fans waiting, but this was the wrong decision.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand Serena, but good on her for standing up for Dinara. The USTA's decision was completely wrong. They should've respected the order of play and let her play on Ashe. If it had been Sharapova or the Williams sisters, they wouldn't have moved them to another court. This was really disrespectful to Safina.
ReplyDeleteUSTA are still just apologizing for not notifying them earlier but not for the fact that they moved her match with Dina being No.1 and scheduled first on court (the main reasons why Dina was pissed), so I don't see the point of USTA's apology.
ReplyDeleteOMG, I am floored by Serena's comment.
ReplyDeleteClassy for once.
I may forgive her some other things.
I remember they tried to do this to Serena at the Australian Open, and she actually refused to be moved. She had to stand up for Safina, or else she would've been a hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteThe Chicken would have lost anyways.
ReplyDeleteI think it put her off her stride, as well. She went into the match disappointed and it got into her head during the match, IMHO. She deserves better..
ReplyDelete