HOT SCORE (1-10): 5
The U.S. Open made the terrible decision to seed Serena Williams according to her ranking, which means some poor, higher-seeded girl is going home early with less money than she should have when Serena smacks her in the early rounds of play. We get that she has not played in a while, so it wouldn’t be fair to the other players to seed her too high, but No. 28 is barely a seed. (Click here for the full list of seeds in the women’s draw. Matchups will be announced on August 25th.)
Because, you know, it’s not like Serena just beat Top 10 players – including #7 Maria Sharapova – on her way to her first tournament victory in over a year, or beat another Top 10 player en route to her second title in as many weeks or anything. Man, she is really struggling these days…
We get it, U.S. Open officials: Stick with the rankings, not past performances, so the exceptions don’t swallow the rule. But there’s a slight problem with such a rigid rule when you’re applying it to a person who has won your tournament five times (3 singles, 2 doubles championships) and who is walking over the Top 10 players in the world like their the 28th seeds.
Chrissy Evert agrees with us:
“It hurts the field, is what it does. It really doesn’t hurt Serena as much as it hurts the other players. One of the top seeds will get her in the third round,” said Evert, who will call U.S. Open matches for ESPN2. “I think they could have made a much better judgment call.”
We are certain when the draw comes out, whoever is in Serena’s bracket is not going to be a happy camper. We have to wait two days for the brackets to come out, too, but we’re looking at you, Sharapova.
