Serena Williams Settles Her Old Score with Indian Wells, Defeats Stephens, And More

Fourteen years ago in 2001, the whole stadium was jeering at Serena Williams winning the match, claiming to be an instant of racism in the sports where the first ever Black woman was going on to win a major tennis tournament.

The then tournament director Charlie Pasarell, after hearing the official complaint from the Williams about racism, said that if they had heard something, then they might have, but he knows that the people of Indian Wells wouldn’t do something like this. The complete silence from the tournament’s committee made it evident that they did not believe the claims made by the Williams family. This had led to the Williams sisters boycotting the tournament for a decade.

The tears in the eyes of the Williams’ family showed how deeply they were moved by the incidents of that ill-fated night of 2001. It removed all doubts about the incident being a scam by the family.

The crowd at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden was exceptionally quiet at the Williams-Sloane match. Sloane defeated Williams in the first round, but the latter didn’t let her 2001 and 2013 jitters get the better of her. She kept her cool and made a comeback, winning the next two sets and the match.