Renowned tennis journalist Catherine Whitaker has made a claim about 23-time Grand Slam champion and former World No. 1 Serena Williams.
According to Whitaker, Serena’s shock exit from the Miami Open was indeed one of her worst performances, which she dubbed as ‘horror show’, something the American has never expected even in her wildest dreams.
Williams was annihilated by in-form Naomi Osaka of Japan in their opening round encounter last week. Serena, who made her much anticipated return to action recently after the birth of her daughter Alexis Olympia in September, left the tournament site without undertaking her official press conference.
And Whitaker admitted that while Serena wouldn’t have had high hopes following her comeback, but she would not have expected to crash out in the first round.
“Serena Williams, the horror draw of Naomi Osaka in the first round turned out to be just that,” Whitaker said on The Tennis Podcast.
“I think in fact it turned out to be more of a horror show than she was hoping it might be.
“She might not have been hoping to win, Serena, but she lost out very decisively to Naomi Osaka.
“As we understand it, and as reported by media on site, she jumped straight into a waiting car and did not attend any type of press conference and left in quite a fury.”
Whitaker claimed it wasn’t the first time that the 36-year-old left the arena immediately after losing her match.
“I saw it happen when she lost to Roberta Vinci at the US Open in 2015,” she added.
“She did actually, I have to say, stop off at a press conference for 30 seconds on that occasion.
“She said ‘yes, no, goodbye’. But only I think because it was on the way out, she would have had to walk past, it literally was on her route out of the grounds.”
