Sloane Stephens Rips Serena Williams In Latest ESPN The Magazine (They Aren’t Friends!)
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Sloane Stephens is not just losing on the court, now she’s losing off it. Stephens, who’s been struggling ever since reaching the Australian Open semifinals, is now taking some serious shots at tennis legend Serena Williams for not playing nice.
Courtesy of SI who got their hands on the upcoming ESPN The Magazine story from the May 15 issue:
“She’s not said one word to me, not spoken to me, not said hi, not looked my way, not been in the same room with me since I played her in Australia,” Stephens says emphatically. “And that should tell everyone something, how she went from saying all these nice things about me to unfollowing me on Twitter.”
Her mom tries to slow her down, but Sloane is insistent. “Like, seriously! People should know. They think she’s so friendly and she’s so this and she’s so that — no, that’s not reality! You don’t unfollow someone on Twitter, delete them off of BlackBerry Messenger. I mean, what for? Why?”
The media had also reported Serena was a mentor to Sloane, but Sloane says otherwise:
“For the first 16 years of my life, she said one word to me and was never involved in my tennis whatsoever,” says Stephens. “I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal that she’s not involved now. If you mentor someone, that means you speak to them, that means you help them, that means you know about their life, that means you care about them. Are any of those things true at this moment? No, so therefore…”
I offer: “They want the next great American player.”
Stephens says: “They want another Serena.”
The two do not follow each other on twitter and it’s clear now the Fed Cup teammates are not friends.
Since beating a back-hobbled Serena in the Australian Open quarterfinals Sloane has won just two of 10 matches after losing yesterday in Madrid. Now the 20-year-old is suffering some major hits to her off court image by criticizing one of the most popular female athletes on the planet. In my opinion that type of talk is often better kept private.
It will be interesting hear Serena’s response to Sloane’s tirade.
“They want another Serena,” @sloanetweets says. But she’s got other ideas. Catch her in our #Mag15 issue out Friday twitter.com/ESPNMag/status…
— ESPN The Magazine (@ESPNMag) April 30, 2013
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