In a previous game, same match, Serena forced her racket with such continuous pressure against the court that she burst the glass fiber reinforced graphite racket into a million pieces, On the same line and possibly the same judge.
Now go back and watch the overhead shots of Serena threatening the judge. She walked a distance placing her closer to the judge than where she was serving from on the court nearest the judge, then began shaking her racket at the judge, while mouthing profane comments at the judge in reaction to the judges call.
Replay the incident. Serena paused after the call.
She could have considered she might have made an error and the judge called her fault. Considering she is that close to the baseline, had she had any sense of conscientiousness, her response wouldn’t have been to accuse, let alone threaten the judge, it would have been to correct her own play.
Everything after that pause is merely one bad decision after another, reinforcing her wrong line of thinking, unable to control her own sportsmanship. She didn’t respect legitimate authority of the line judge, the umpire, or even a commissioner, and unfairly to her opponent, none of them had the guts to enforce their legitimate authority, while Serena stormed over anybody who didn’t let her get her way. Serena doesn’t even respect the legitimate authority of the laws of physics as she intentionally breaks her graphite racket into a million pieces and throws it away when she walks away from the tennis commissioner.
Serena manifest criminal intent, behavior and thinking in something as benign as a tennis match.
I'm a past member of the USLTA and I've been in the chair as an official and called lines in men's matches. There have been players like Nastase who used the occasional blow up as a way to try and distract an opponent, to 'put them off when they were in a groove.' What the Williams female did was not for 'gamesmanship', it was outright vulgar thuggishness. That ml/nj wants to diminish that to something so so is telling of ml/nj.
If I had been in that chair position, the match would have eneded that very moment when the Willaims thug went out of control. And in the past, the USLTA would have suspended her from play for several tournaments, perhaps a year or more, until she could control her rage. She is an insult to the honor of the game when she does not control herself.