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Busted Racquet - Tennis

Busted Racquet

Mon Aug 02 10:03am EDT

Los Angeles ATP tournament wanted Serena to pay for tickets

By Chris Chase

A few days ago, Serena Williams met with James Blake in Los Angeles to take some pictures in promotion of the Farmers Classic, the ATP tournament in the city. After a brief trip to Tampa, Serena was back in town and wanted a free ticket to the event, maybe because she had done the promotional work and felt she was entitled or maybe because she's Serena Williams and felt she was entitled. Or maybe both.

Evidently, organizers of the tournament disagreed and ridiculously told Williams that she'd need to pay $100 for her ticket. This understandably displeased Serena, who took to her Twitter account with a rant so juvenile one half-expected to read a "nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah boo-boo" somewhere in the proceedings:

Omg! The @farmersclassic tennis tournament in LA is charging me $100 a ticket... After I plugged them!!! Lol ill send a bill for my plug!less than a minute ago via UberTwitterSerena Williams
serenajwilliams

@farmersclassic = use @serenajwilliams than over charge her to see tennis! Lol. I would have paid been happy to $1000 If I did not plug themless than a minute ago via UberTwitterSerena Williams
serenajwilliams

@farmersclassic = use @serenajwilliams than over charge her to see tennis! Lol. Anywho don't go if u r in LAless than a minute ago via UberTwitterSerena Williams
serenajwilliams

Everybody is in the wrong here. The tournament bears the responsibility for the incident because of the alleged decision not to give Serena a free ticket. This should have been a no-brainer in any circumstance since getting a famous person to your tournament equals free publicity. (It's not like Serena was looking for courtside seats to the Lakers. She was trying to go to an ATP tournament that advertises itself with James Blake. Keep things in perspective here, Famers Classic.) Throw in the fact that Serena did some promotional work and its refusal to give a ticket sort of becomes insulting.

[Photos: See the Williams sisters' sexy off-court style]

If Serena had taken that tact — "it's not the cost of the ticket but the principle of matter" — then she'd have been right. But, as Serena is wont to do, she took things a little bit too far emotionally and unleashed a petty and spiteful rant on Twitter, which culminated in her telling people not to go to the tournament.

This is where a Twitter account can get athletes into trouble. If this had happened two years ago, Serena stews for a few hours and forgets about it. With Twitter, she's writing 140-character missives in real-time to 1.7 million people and bolstering her reputation as a diva.

[Photos: See Serena in action on the court]

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