Roberta Vinci wasn't the Williams family's favorite person to begin with. After F-bombing Venus in the semifinals at the Wuhan Open, Vinci probably won't be invited to the Williams' house for the holidays, either.
Venus Williams gained revenge for sister Serena's defeat to Vinci at the U.S. Open semifinals with a 5-7, 6-2, 7-6 (4) victory that took 2 hours and 42 minutes to complete.
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Part of the reason the match took so long was that Venus was obviously laboring toward the end of the match. And that drew the ire of Vinci.
Vinci was serving for the second time on match point for Venus when she stopped her motion, apparently because her adversary wasn't ready. Vinci muttered something as she gave an annoyed look to her opponent. Venus explained that the ball boy was still moving, according to USA Today Sports' For the Win.
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That's when Vinci countered with a sentence that ended with, "What the f---?" Complex.com reported. "Excuse me?" Venus responded.
Williams won the point for the match. Both For the Win and Complex criticized Vinci for her "lame handshake" with Williams after the match. Vinci made no eye contact and made the handshake as brief as possible.
"This right here is bush league," For the Win commented.
However, when Venus won a point on her serve to go up 5-3 in the third-set tiebreak, she took one minute, 17 seconds before her next serve -- she even made an inadvertent toss before finally getting her serve over.
Vinci was visibly upset then and muttered something then as well. According to a footnote on Fivethirtyeight.com, the WTA has a 20-second rule between points. Vinci had a right to be angry, but perhaps more toward the umpire for allowing Venus to take so long between points.
Venus said after the match she wished she could donate that victory to Serena when the world's No. 1 player was attempting to complete the calendar Grand Slam.
"If I could, I'd give my win to Serena at the U.S. Open," Venus said. "Unfortunately it doesn't work like that."
Vinci ended Serena's dream in the semis 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. For the Win reported that Vinci used a slow-down tactic to throw off Serena.
"There was some speculation at the time that Vinci's speed of play helped get Serena off-track at the U.S. Open," the site said.
Williams-style payback or a coincidence?
The video of the final points demonstrated a visibly tired Venus, who suffers from Sjogren's Syndrome, an auto-immune disease that saps her of her strength.
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