Serena got her ass beat on Saturday night, which is no surprise to anybody who’s been watching her lately.  Yes, she’s been contending, but a simple eye test on her matches reveals a slow, apathetic player who looks like she’d rather be anywhere than on the court.  She used to carry herself with a ferocious competitiveness that only Kobe and MJ could rival in sports.  This summer, she has been the antithesis of that.

The Wimbledon final was one of the worst sports championship matches I’ve ever watched.  Serena was giving up on games left and right.  Unforced errors everywhere.  No motivation in her face, just dull eyes and a tired demeanor.  You wouldn’t know that if you had listened to the broadcast, however.  In their eyes, it’s okay that she dogged the final.  She had just become a MOTHER!

Angelique Kerber wins her first Wimbledon, and the entire ceremony is dedicated to Serena’s motherhood.  Kerber meets the new princess, and all the royals cared about was meeting new mother Serena afterwards.  It was embarrassing.  At that moment, I was certain that women’s sports had reached nadir.  Then Serena somehow made the US Open final and this happened…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo-GDzysQ9E

This right here is easily the most childish and immature display of sore losing I have ever seen.  And make no mistakes about it, this was clearly a show to mask how terribly she was losing in this final.  Yes, what her coach was doing is commonplace in tennis and it’s somewhat bush league to enforce that, but it also is technically against the rules.  And when you’ve already been docked a warning for sportsmanship, you can’t lose your cool and smash a racket in the middle of a championship match.  Old Serena would’ve known that; New Serena doesn’t care.

In the post-match press conference, Serena tried to turn this into a women’s rights issue.  Huh?  If respecting women means we’re supposed to respect this type of behavior from athletes, then I don’t care about respecting women in this blog.  Time for my real thoughts:

Any man who has ever been in a relationship will immediately relate to this video.  A woman fucks something up, refuses to admit said fuck up, and emotions take over as she lashes out of control at a man.  The man then has to quickly make a logical calculation and set his boundary at the right balance between life as a whipped chump vs life dominated by arguments.  It’s one of the most frustrating parts of life as a man.

Usually, sports is an escape from bullshit like that in life.  Up until this past weekend, women’s tennis even qualified as said sports escape.  A big reason for that is Serena Williams and her incredible career, but this New Serena is a major about-face from that.

If she’s going to continue to behave like this, then she needs to do what’s best for women’s sports as a whole and retire.  It’s probably best for her personal life as well.  After all, she is a mother now.