http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dwyre1...ack=1&cset=true


Williams sisters should try desert healing
March 17, 2007

Daniela Hantuchova will play Svetlana Kuznetsova in the women's final today at the Pacific Life Open tennis tournament. They are nice players. Their names trigger a buzz in Slovakia and Russia.

This is also the sixth consecutive year that the Williams sisters have not played at Indian Wells. Ah, Venus and Serena. Talk about a real buzz.

Many fans in the desert don't remember, or even know, the story. That March night in 2001, when Venus defaulted to Serena minutes before they were to play their semifinal, is coated in cobwebs. People may vaguely recall how Venus jilted a stadium full of fans, left TV networks scrambling on two minutes' notice, then had a news conference to explain that tendinitis in her knee had acted up.

She walked in and out of that press session without a limp and treated questions about the timing of her decision with arrogance and disdain.

Two weeks later, Venus won the title in Miami. She also won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open that year.

Fans may remember more clearly the final, two days after Venus' default. Serena played Kim Clijsters and was greeted with boos that were loudest during the first set and continued through the match, bringing Serena near tears.

She won. For some that might have been the best answer.

But their father, Richard, got into shouting matches with fans and told reporters that the boos had been racially motivated, not triggered by anger among fans who'd bought tickets for Venus-Serena and got doubles instead.

Later, Richard was quoted as saying that what had happened was "the worst kind of prejudice since they killed Martin Luther King."

Richard said his daughters would never play at Indian Wells again, and they haven't.

Now, it is time for Richard's ban to turn into one of those lifetime track-and-field drug bans that usually lasts two years.

The Williams sisters should come back and play. It would be good for tennis, for sports, for human relations. And, in the long run, better for them.

Their grudge has cost them millions. Presumably, they have plenty. Presumably, like most of us, they'd like more. This year's champion gets $306,890, the runner-up $150,670. The Williams sisters once won Olympic doubles gold. Women's doubles winners at Indian Wells split $84,120. Indian Wells is a financial paradise lost for the sisters.

Their best response to the 2001 boo-birds is to show up and win. Or at least win them over. Just as Richard's claim of rampant racism in the stands was overblown, so was the consensus that this was only about angry ticket-buyers.

There was racism spewing from some mouths. You have a stadium in which the vast majority are white people. All the Neanderthal hasn't been totally bred out. But what percentage was booing dollars-and-cents and what percentage racial issues? Impossible to determine.

If the sisters still feel wronged, they should come back and get even. Or ahead. Play well, embrace the experience and dazzle the fans, who will love them for just showing up.

Serena won the Australian Open this year, and Venus is playing well too. They are healthy and will be in Key Biscayne, Fla., next week to play in the Indian Wells mirror-image tournament, the Sony Ericsson Open.

But this tournament deserves them too, and they it. This is where, as a Southern California teenager, Venus played a memorable night match against an established Lindsay Davenport, who remembers barely winning and saying to herself afterward, "Oh, oh."

Serena arrived shortly thereafter and won two titles in the desert. The sisters have lots of tennis left. Serena is 25 and has won eight Grand Slam tournaments. Venus is 26 and has five Slams. With those resumes comes responsibility.

The sisters can make their last few years great ones. They can win with style and fanfare and lose with dignity. They can be bigger than the small minds that want to categorize by prejudice. By refraining from remaining aloof, they can prove that being so is not related to race, and quiet critics who say otherwise.

The Pacific Life Open is a blot on the Williams legacy. Whether they were right or wrong, whether Venus was injured, whether all 15,000 fans in the stands that day were Ku Klux Klan members, the blot will remain if it is left unaddressed.

The saying about athletes applies here. Venus and Serena need to learn to say hello before it is time to say goodbye.

This desert tournament is prestigious. Organizers this year are projecting attendance approaching 300,000, a number only the Grand Slams attract.

Those organizers, though, aren't staking any sort of future on the presence of the Williams sisters. They had nothing to do with the events of 2001 and have wished, and openly sought, the return of the sisters. Now, like everybody else, they've tabled expectations.

Nevertheless, their tournament deserves the best in the game, and the best in the game deserve the stage the tournament provides.

March of 2008 will be seven years. We recommend that the Williams sisters scratch the itch. Show up next year. Win. Get the last laugh.

:ok: A well written article.

They made a stand what they felt was nessecary, and i respect them for that :)

Its not as though IW is on its knee's without V&S :lol:

True. I thought it was a very well-balanced article. The author pretty much says that neither the tournament nor the Williams sisters are suffering terribly because of their decision, but both would probably be better off if they decided to compete again.

I remember when the whole incident happened. That was the point that I actually lost a lot of respect for Richard Williams. I thought it was pretty insulting and racist of him to try to portray the negative reaction of the crowd as being about their racism.

Again, as the auther so eloquently put it:

But I do know that there wasn't much booing going on in their matches prior to the infamous withdrawal just minutes before they were to face each other.

I think it shows a lot of the strength and inegrity of Serena and Venus' character that they've stuck to their words in this.

I do thnik the artuicle is very balanced and fair though, and perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing after six/seven years they were to put this behind them and play Indian Wells again.

I can't help but think this year would've been a great opportunity for them both to win it.

One man's strength and integrity is anothers stubbornnes born out of unjustified bitterness.

Venus did not show much respect to the people that pay her by scratching like that, it is hardly surprising that the fans suspected collusion and booed Serena.

If members of the crowed used the smokescreen to make racist chants that was despicable, but as Nick said there was not booing of the sisters before the match scratched. The Williams sisters should not any more delude themseves that the root cause of the booing was other than Venus' lack of respect for the paying public.

However - I don't want to get away from the spirit of a very fair article, people make mistakes and act gauchely (especially when they are younger), and being booed by a crowd like that must be horrible. Now we are 6 years on and everyone should let bygones be bygones.

To depart from the spirit of the article for a moment:

That would require the Williams sisters to demonstrate a bit of graciousness.... are they up to it?

the williams sisters need not play indian wells. and good on them for standing by their word. but at the same time, they both deserved some booing on that day. back then their matches were a little dodgy.

I'm not so sure about that. It's not like they've played full schedules anyway, the last several years, so did it really take that much strength for them to not play IW? :shrug:

Plus, I personally think it was the wrong decision for them to boycott the tournament and accuse the crowd of racism. Sticking to your word, when you were wrong in the first place, is more stubbornness than integrity. (But for those who think it was the right thing to do, I could see how it could be viewed as integrity.)

Should have read all the responses before posting, as I see barrystar has already made pretty much the same point . . .

The thing is I have never received racist abuse and hopefully I never will but even though the motive of the crowd was booing because they lost out on their ticket, which I probably would have participated in. Venus made an essential comment as to why she wont go there again.

When the uneducated people among the crowd started giving racist taunts someone should have stepped in, I know in England someone would have shut them up, we have a lot manners when it come to these instances. In france it would have probably been worst. I remember reading somewhere that Venus said " if anyone could have even stepped in amongst the racist abuse it would have been fine but people seemed to join in".

People, its hard being booed first of all and then picture racist taunts being added. These girls are rich black kids living in the year 2000's and probably have never seen anything like it before and therefore do not have the patient to deal with it. In the past black people probably took that kind of crap because they didn't want to be killed, loss their jobs etc.. but these women have money to the ceiling and therefore no humility enough to handle this in the appropriate way.

There are 3 groups to blame on this incident the main people are the indian wells organisers. They could have done what the FA does now. Get videos of the perpetrators and then banned them for life (the racist ones only) but they didn't do a single thing.

Richard williams for 2 reason, if venus intentionally pulled out then he was the instigator and after the incident he did put alot of coal in the fire.

Lastly the idiotic people who started the racist taunts amongst the boos.

The Williams family just used racism as a smokescreen. They know that they let a lot of people down and this was their way of avoiding having to justify it.

very insightful.

Were there specific racist chants? is there reasonable evidence that there were?

Slight change of tac, but I've always found the Williiam's sisters less than dignified both in victory and defeat, but especially Venus. One example was when Venus first won Wimbledon against Davenport, ok Venus's exuberance was slightly OTT, but her near disregard for Lindsey in terms of her body language and when talking on court about the victory i found slightly embarrassing. She had to be coaxed into acknowledging Lindsey and any commiseration there was for Lindsey was certainly not genuine.

They must have had PR lessons since then because Serenas attitude this years AO was awesome, towards the fans and players

everyone has grown up a lot since then...

why thank you :)

Your comment was outstanding, in depth and widened my knowledge on the topic.

I find it very hard to comment on this, since I don't exactly know what happened.

But there have been big problems with racist chants in other sports, notably football. I know these problems exist in Britain. It seems they can also be quite severe in Germany these days, particularly in the lower leagues and in the former East-German states, but not exclusively.

I can find it easy to imagine that people were booing because of the match having been cancelled, but then this was taken as an opportunity for racist remarks to have taken hold. If that was indeed the case, then someone should have stepped in, and Serena and Venus were right to boycot the tournament.

On the other hand, does anyone know of someone who confirms that this *did* indeed happen? Richard Williams is a bit of a kook, so maybe he made this up ... if there was a substantial amount of racist abuse, then someone other than him and his daughters should have noticed it ... :shrug:

Well indian Wells is one of the super tier ones and bearing in mind Serena won there in 2001, I think as defending champ she did show a lot of strength not to go back there in 2002 and defend her title when she would've been a strong favourite to win no doubt :)

I know they miss loads of events anyway, but until the incident, Indian Wells was one of the events both sisters made an effort to attend. Hence their strong showings there pre-2001.

Also Im not sure racism was the real reason the crowd's behaviour was brought into question, I think it was a smoke screen (as has been said) for the allegation of match fixing and all that was going on at that time. Serena and Venus were very annoyed by these slanderous and unfounded accusations. And I think it's perfectly fair of them to make a stand on it. I don't think it's in anyway stubborn or pig headed.

So Venus should play injured then and risk her career?

Well as long as she does't let the fans down :rolleyes:

The timing was poor, that's about it.

Not exactly hard to do is it :rolleyes: