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Serena slayer Vinci gets into beef with Venus: 'Do you want a tea or coffee or something?'

One month ago, Roberta Vinci ended Serena Williams’ Grand Slam run in the semifinals of the U.S. Open. This week, Serena’s sister, Venus, was out for revenge, playing Vinci in the semis of the Wuhan Open in China. It was a tight, testy three-set affair that became testiest on match point when Vinci, serving down 4-6 in the decisive third-set tiebreaker didn’t like how long Venus was taking to get into position between a first and second serve:

Vinci first yells an Italian profanity across the court, in a “what are you doing?” way. Venus yells that the ball boy was still moving. Vinci, unswayed by that reasonable answer, remains upset and sarcastically adds “Do you want a tea or a coffee maybe?” Venus shouts back something incomprehensible from across the net. Finally, Vinci hit her second serve on match point:

Game, set, match, Miss Williams.

There was some speculation at the time that Vinci’s speed of play helped get Serena off-track at the U.S. Open. Maybe Venus was giving a little bit of it back on Friday? Or maybe the incidents were unrelated entirely. Either way, Vinci’s handshake (if you can call it that) was quite lame.

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Though Serena hasn’t mentioned Vinci’s name in public since, she gave a professional, courteous handshake after losing at the Open, stopping at the net, looking Vinci in the eye and whispering some words to her. This right here is just bush league, though I love Venus’s face with its “be unsportsmanlike all you like, I’m going to the final” look.

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