Sloane Stephens is breaking her silence about her relationship with Serena Williams and as it turns out, the young tennis star hopeful doesn’t see Serena as the kind hearted athlete that is always seen in the media.
Sloane sat down with ESPN The Magazine after becoming the youngest person to ever defeat Williams on the court and while she should be celebrating her historic victory, it seems as if her “mentor” is raining all over her parade.
Ever since that fateful day at the Australian Open quarterfinals, Stephens claims that the famous tennis star has not spoken to her.
“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 told the magazine.
As if the cold shoulder wasn’t enough to get the point across, Serena also unfollowed her on Twitter and deleted her from BlackBerry Messenger.
“Like, seriously! People should know,” the 20-year-old tennis star said. “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 loss really seemed to get under Williams’ skin and a tweet posted not too long after the game is rumored to be aimed at Sloane.
“I made you,” the 31-year-old tennis star tweeted shortly after unfollowing Stephens.
While some people might speculate that all of Serena’s recent media attention is getting to her head, Sloane claims that she has been exposed to this other side of Serena for quite some time now.
When she was 12, the aspiring tennis megastar waiting all day outside of Serena’s match at a Fed Cup and all she wanted as a simple autograph on her poster.
Despite the famous athlete passing by her three different times, she refused to take two seconds to scribble her name across the poster of a young fan.
“I waited all day [for an autograph],” she explained. “They walked by three times and never signed our posters.”
After that day, Stephens trashed the idea of having Serena be her role model and instead began looking up to Kim Clijsters.
Now that Sloane is actually playing on the same courts as the young fan it seems almost as if she is irritated with the young woman’s success.
While she never admitted that she was supposed to be her full time mentor, she did reveal that she wasn’t willing to take on the role of a mentor right now.
“It’s hard to be a real mentor when you’re still in competition,” Williams said before the Australian Open quarterfinal. “But I’m here to compete and do the best I can, as well as she. And she’s doing really amazing. I’m really happy [for her].
Perhaps it is the mere fact that the 20-year-old athlete has already been deemed as the next Serena Williams when Serena hasn’t even left the game yet. It the world of sports you can’t help but feel threatened by a youngster coming after your title and maybe that just got the best of the tennis icon?
While Serena’s camp hasn’t responded to the allegations of her being such a poor sport and a terrible mentor, she was seen reaching out to Stephens back in April just a few weeks after the interview.
Sources claimed that all of a sudden Serena was treating the young woman “like her favorite.”
Seems like a last ditch effort at a bit of damage control?
Either way, Serena has certainly disappointed many fans by taking the loss so poorly.
