Serena Williams fined $10G for damaging Wimbledon court during practice
Professional tennis player Serena Williams was fined $10,000 by the All England Club for damaging a court during practice before the Wimbledon tournament began. (AP)
Star tennis player Serena Williams was fined Monday by the All England Club for damaging a court during practice.
Williams damaged the court after throwing her racket during practice before the Wimbledon tournament began, the BBC reported. This is not the first time Williams has been fined at Wimbledon. In 2016, she was fined $10,000 for repeatedly smashing her racket during her match against Christina McHale.
Last year, Williams was fined $17,000 after smashing her racket and arguing with match official Carlos Ramos during her straight-set finals loss to Naomi Osaka of Japan. She received three code violations and was penalized a point and one game.
Williams penned an essay for Harper’s Bazaar’s August cover story discussing the match, arguing that men do the same during matches but they're “seen as passionate and strong.”
“What could I have done better? Was I wrong to stand up?” she asked in the article. “Why is it that when women get passionate, they’re labeled emotional, crazy, and irrational, but when men do they’re seen as passionate and strong?”
Williams later revealed she wrote an apology “to the person who deserved it most” — Osaka.
The tennis star was also not the only one fined during this year’s Wimbledon tournament.
Italian tennis player Fabio Fognini was fined $3,000 after saying that he wished a bomb would hit Wimbledon. He made the comment during his loss to Tennys Sandgren Saturday, the BBC reported. Meanwhile, Australian tennis player Bernard Tomic was fined his full prize money of $56,500 at Wimbledon last week for not meeting “the required professional standards” in his first-round loss.
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Williams, 37, will face fellow American Alison Riske in the quarterfinals at the All England Club as she chases an eighth Wimbledon title and a 24th major overall.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.