The "bad personality" Serena Williams was accused of showing at a French Open press conference just shows she is flawed like the rest of us, Chris Evert has said.
Evert said "nobody's perfect," when Business Insider asked for her take on a viral storm that involved Williams, the men's singles player Dominic Thiem, and a now-infamous media event at Roland Garros last month.
It was the last time Williams played competitive tennis, when she was resoundingly beaten 6-2, 7-5 by the 20-year-old Russia-born American Sofia Kenin on June 1.
After the defeat, Williams left the court and wanted to address the press in the French Open media room. But Thiem, a clay court specialist, was already in the room and talking to reporters after his victory over Pablo Cuevas.
Williams reportedly told press officers to put her in a smaller room so she could fulfil her media obligation, then leave. But other rooms were also occupied. Frustrated, Williams was apparently getting ready to leave altogether but organizers urged her to stay, and instead interrupted Thiem's conference and told him to leave.
Thiem complained out of "principle," said Williams "showed a bad personality," and that he was "100% sure Federer or Nadal would never do something like that."
The incident was even discussed on the US talk show "The View," where the host Whoopi Goldberg sided with Williams, calling Thiem a "bonehead," She said: "Listen, man, don't nobody know who you are."
Williams is set to return to the court on Tuesday for the first time since that French Open fiasco, in a first-round Wimbledon Championships match against Giulia Gatto-Monticone.
Business Insider spoke to the former 18-time Grand Slam champion Evert about Williams' prospects, during which she suggested that the "bad personality" incident shows she's only human. Evert added that she admires Williams because the 37-year-old is a "champion of many causes."
"She's a champion of causes … and I admire her for that," Evert said at the Dubai Duty Free WTA Summer Party in London on Friday. "Not only for mothers who go back to work, but she's a champion of many, many causes and I just respect that."
Williams has a passion for helping children have access to education, and her Serena Williams Foundation was crucial in the construction of two schools in Kenya in recent years.
She used her profile in 2015 to implore Silicon Valley to employ "more women and people of different colors and nationalities in tech," in an article for Wired.
And, more recently, she has a been a voice for working mothers, tweeting her frustrations at missing key moments in her daughter's life because she had been training.
She took her first steps... I was training and missed it. I cried.
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) 7 July 2018
Seven of Williams' 23 Grand Slam successes have been at Wimbledon. Though she has not won in London since 2016, she reached last year's final. If she performs at even 80% of her full capability, she will be a threat, Evert said.
"You can't count Serena out," she added. "When she's on-form, she's the best grass court player and best champion out there. It's just a matter if she's gotten her step back, her movement, if she's gotten her serve back. Her service let her down a little bit this year. If she can get up to 80% or 90%, she's going to be hard to beat."
Williams plays Gatto-Monticone at 4.15 p.m. local time (BST) in the first round Tuesday.
