(Bloomberg) - U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe says tennis officials have waited too long to suspend 11-time Grand Slam Champion Serena Williams for her outburst at the U.S. Open in September. "The opportunity for a suspension of any sort has passed" said McEnroe. "If it had happened, it should have happened right at the U.S. Open. To suspend her now, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense." Suspending Williams from the Jan. 18th - 31st Australian Open, the first Grand Slam event of the 2010 season, wouldn't be fair to the tournament said McEnroe.
"For a first offense, to suspend her at the Australian Open, you're penalizing them for something they really had nothing to do with. It was obviously outrageous what she did but it was really the first time anything like that has happened. If you look at the history of suspensions in tennis, they are generally from a second, third or fourth offense. If another player did something like what she did, they may have been defaulted right out of the tournament, right on the spot, for singles and doubles. Did Serena get treated differently? Maybe. That's not to say it's right or wrong, it just is what it is."
-- by Michael Buteau
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