ESPN Magazine – To be fair, if there were misconceived notions about the tight relationship between Sloane and Serena, it’s in part because Stephens played along. In January Stephens told ESPN, “She’s, like, one of my really good friends” and that “everyone thinks she’s so mean, but she’s, like, the greatest person ever.” In reality, their interaction consisted of occasionally warming up together before events and chitchatting in the locker room between matches.
But then Sloane beat Serena in Australia. “She’s not said one word to me, not spoken to me, not said hi, not looked my way, not been in the same room with me since I played her in Australia,” Stephens says emphatically. “And that should tell everyone something, how she went from saying all these nice things about me to unfollowing me on Twitter.”
Her mom tries to slow her down, but Sloane is insistent. “Like, seriously! People should know. They think she’s so friendly and she’s so this and she’s so that — no, that’s not reality! You don’t unfollow someone on Twitter, delete them off of BlackBerry Messenger. I mean, what for? Why?”
Then there was the alleged subtweet — a cryptic message posted to Serena’s Twitter feed two days after their January match and addressed to no one in particular that said, “I made you.” Stephens was sure it was about her, and so were a few of Williams’ followers who tweeted back at Serena about “that lil girl” who beat her. “I was like, ‘You really don’t think I know that that’s about me?'” Stephens says.
I thought that this whole story is absurd. A rising star beats an injured legend during one match and all of a sudden the media creates a huge story about it. Both parties involved (Serena and Sloane) are acting immature about the whole thing and the media feeds off of it. Sloane is only 20 years old and the youngest woman in the top 20 but isn’t the point that she hasn’t done anything in the tennis world in regards to winning. The only reason this is a story is because she’s a black rising star female and Serena is the best black tennis player in ever, and they don’t get along. Does anyone give a shit about this story? That Serena is a bitch and this girl is learning what it’s like in the professional world. This type of news story is the worst because it inflicts a race card which is the only reason it’s a story. Serena’s attitude to a girl who beat her is atrocious by the way. Sloane should have taken the higher road and kept her mouth shut but she lowered herself to Serena’s game and now it seems her game is paying the price. She’s been on a downward slide of inconsistency since beating Serena and I can only imagine why. Me posting about Women’s tennis has to be a low point for this blog.
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