Serena, Venus Win Doubles Title, Followed By Awkward Post-Match Interview

Awwwkwwward.

Serena and Venus Williams won the womens’ doubles championship today at the U.S. Open, which led to a mighty uncomfortable trophy presentation.

In this video, it’s evident that the judge and/or official believed that Serena told the judge she was going to kill her. This isn’t strictly true. From ESPN:

Dropping the f-word liberally, Williams said, “I swear to God I’m [expletive] going to take this [expletive] ball and shove it down your [expletive] throat, you hear that? I swear to God.“Beside the fact that Williams didn’t specifically say, “I’m going to kill you,” this is obvious hyperbole -- in other words, it was an illustrative exaggeration. It shouldn’t be classified as a literal threat, but as verbal abuse with enough vitriol behind it to take seriously. Still, verbally abusing a judge is grounds for a one-point penalty. Unfortunately for Williams, this occurred just prior to match point, and Kim Clijsters won as a result.

About two minutes after resuming play, Rafael Nadal won the tiebreaker of the second set. Nadal is now up, 7-6 7-6.

We are the greyhound, and the quarterfinals match between Rafael Nadal and Fernando Gonzalez is the carrot, seemingly forever out of reach. Instead of starting at 11 Saturday morning, the match will now start at noon. When will it be delayed until next? Once again, the U.S. Open keeps us on the edges of our seats. The occasional tennis match is pretty fun, too.

Hopefully it stops raining someday. U.S. Open officials have fleshed out their revised schedule Nadal-Gonzalez will resume at 11 on Saturday, The men’s semifinals will take place at noon Sunday, and the men’s final will be played on Monday night (time undetermined as of yet). The women’s schedule has been revised as well.

The semifinal between Caroline Wozniacki and Yanina Wickmayer will take place [Saturday]. Serena Williams vs. Kim Clijsters will be at 8 p.m.

Just announced: The Serena Williams-Kim Clijsters and Yanina Wickmayer-Caroline Wozniacki semifinal matches have been called off. They will attempt to play them tomorrow (Saturday). A schedule for those matches has not yet been released.

Meanwhile, they have not called the Nadal-Gonzalez match, meaning they hope to play it at some point tonight.

Throughout the first set last night in his match against Fernando Gonzalez, Rafael Nadal was hurting, needing an injury timeout to get treatment for his strained abdominal muscle before returning to the court.

He recovered enough to continue play, but there was worry that the delay would hurt Nadal as the night wore on. Yet the eventual postponement of the match and the subsequent delay today can only serve to help Nadal, giving him time to rest the muscle and heal before continuing the match.

Nadal and Gonzalez are back on the court after their rain delay and are currently fighting hard -- both players love to scream, huh? -- for the post-rain advantage. It’s currently 5-5 in the second set. The crowd is freaking out. The forehands are crackling. Let’s settle in and enjoy, shall we?

Fernando Gonzalez must be kicking himself. Up 6-5 in the first set, Gonzo had two break points to get out to an early lead. However, as we’ve seen time and time again, Nadal staved off his attacks and forced a tiebreak.

Despite very clean and precise tennis through 12 games, the tiebreak featured very sloppy tennis and a multitude of unforced errors. Nadal got out to a quick 3-0 lead, which was followed immediately by a Gonzalez racket slam that ricocheted off the ground and bopped the Chilean in the head.

Spanish super-stud Rafael Nadal is once again in the quarterfinals of a Slam as he takes on Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez tonight at the U.S. Open. Both men struggled early in their respective Round of 16 matches, but were able to finish off their opponents in four sets. SBNation’s The Daily Forehand broke down the match earlier today:

We’ll see if the heavily favored Nadal and his wedgies can advance to next round. The winner of tonight’s match will face Juan Martin del Potro in the semifinals. The match can be viewed online here.