Serena Williams at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells (Source: Getty)
A huge controversy etched in Indian Wells tennis history is the booing of Serena Williams and her family during the 2001 final. Despite being just 19 and winning a gold medal at the Olympics for the USA, the home favorite was booed incessantly.
Serena was set to face her elder sister Venus Williams in the semifinal of the event at Indian Wells in 2001. This was just months after the sisters bagged the first of three women’s doubles gold medals at the Olympics for the USA. However, Venus could not take to the court and gave her younger sister a walkover.
Allegations of match-fixing were made against their father Richard Williams. It was suggested that Richard used to decide who wins the matches between the sisters. On the back of these allegations, Serena was on the end of an extremely negative reception from fans at Indian Wells.
Serena, 19, at the time, fought past the deafening boos to defeat Kim Clijsters in the final with a 4–6, 6–4, 6–2 win. During the post-match press conference, Williams addressed the intense booing she faced. She admitted she had never experienced such a reaction before and initially felt hurt, especially as a former champion at the event.
She rued the allegations against her family, who were also booed when they entered the stadium. Williams was asked if ‘race’ played a role in the ordeal.
“Race? I think black people have been out of slavery now for just over a hundred years, and people are still kind of struggling a little bit. It hasn’t been that long. I don’t know if race has anything to do with this particular situation. But in general I think, yeah, there’s still a little problem with racism in America,” Serena Williams responded.
Serena, her sister Venus, their father Richard, and mother Oracene Price had accused the Indian Wells crowd of racism.
Serena Williams addressed the Indian Wells controversy in her 2009 autobiography
Serena Williams at the Indian Wells in 2015 – Source: Getty
In her 2009 autobiography, On the Line, Serena Williams addressed the 2001 Indian Wells controversy by dedicating an entire chapter titled “The Fiery Darts of Indian Wells.” Describing what she felt while standing on the court being booed, she wrote:
“I looked up and all I could see was a sea of rich people—mostly older, mostly white—standing and booing lustily, like some kind of genteel lynch mob. I don’t mean to use such inflammatory language to describe the scene, but that’s really how it seemed from where I was down on the court.”
She accused the crowd of using racist slurs, writing:
“There was no mistaking that all of this was meant for me. I heard the word ni**er a couple times, and I knew. I couldn’t believe it. That’s just not something you hear in polite society on that stadium court”
Serena Williams also claimed that when her father and sister Venus entered the court, the crowd booed them and called them the N-word as well. According to the Associated Press, Richard alleged that the Indian Wells crowd used the racist slur against him and Venus had later said “I heard what he heard.”
The Williams sisters decided to boycott the Indian Wells event after the 2001 incident. After over a decade of snub, Serena returned to play the event in 2015 while Venus played there a year later.
