Martina Navratilova doesn’t buy Serena Williams’ explanation for Wimbledon meltdown
By Dan Zinski
By now everyone has seen the bizarre video of Serena Williams suffering a total physical meltdown on the court during a doubles match at Wimbledon, a meltdown that caused her and sister Venus to retire from the contest.
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Williams has claimed that her visible disorientation was caused by a virus, but a lot of people are skeptical about this excuse. Count Martina Navratilova among those calling BS on Serena and her people. Here’s what Martina told ESPN:
"I find it distressing. I think virus, whatever they’re saying it was, I don’t think that was it. I think it’s clear that’s not the case. I don’t know what it is, but I hope Serena will be OK. And most of all, I don’t know how she ended up walking onto the court."
I don’t know exactly what Martina is implying here. If it wasn’t a virus, what was it? Is she trying to suggest that Serena was drunk, drugged up or badly hungover?
Whatever was wrong with Serena, Martina thinks the real issue was with the people around Williams, the people who allowed her to take the court in that messed-up state in the first place.
"I’ve never seen anything like it and hopefully never will again. Everybody was put in such a difficult position, including the WTA. It’s not right. It defies logic on so many fronts. The coach said he hadn’t seen her for two days. He didn’t know anything. How can you be a coach and not know anything? That’s wrong. And Venus was just kind of there. You don’t know what’s going on, but virus was not it, that much is clear."
In the video, Serena can be seen attempting to serve the ball several times in a row, but can’t even manage to bounce it properly and is unable to get it over the net. Everyone else on the court just seems baffled, including the Williams’ opponents, and eventually Serena is forced to walk off with her sister.
The next day, Serena posted this to Instagram to show everyone that she is resting and getting better:
That’s exactly what I look like after a bender. Just saying.
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