You may have heard that long-time tennis rivals Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova faced off in the first round at the US Open. You might’ve also heard how this massively hyped encounter turned out to be a massive flop as Serena blew her rival off the court with an embarrassingly one-sided 6-1 6-1 scoreline.
But what you might not have heard was how Serena delivered a second beatdown on Sharapova off the court with some help from her husband, Alexis Ohanian.
The Reddit co-founder was spotted in Serena’s box during the match and eagle-eyed fans spotted him wearing a D.A.R.E T-shirt. For those who are unaware, the acronym stands for “Drug Abuse Resistance Education,” which is a program aimed at preventing controlled drug use.
Now for some context as to why this simple T-shirt is arguably a bigger burn than the one Serena gave Sharapova on the US Open centre court.
The pair first met on the tennis court back in 2004, where they played three matches. While Serena won the first, Sharapova won the next two and both occurred at two of tennis’ biggest stages, Wimbledon and the WTA Tour Finals. Since those two losses, Serena has made it a personal goal to never lose to Sharapova again, which she hasn’t in their subsequent 19 matches.
Secondly, Sharapova was famously suspended from tennis for two years back in 2016 for testing positive to a banned substance and was given a bit of a mixed welcome back when she returned in 2017.
In summary, not only did Serena wipe the court with Sharapova during the US Open match, her husband threw salt in the wound by rubbing her rival’s well-publicised drug ban all over her face. Ouch.
So the moral of the story: don’t do a Maria Sharapova and piss off Serena Williams because she’ll stomp you on and off the tennis court.
Oh, and don’t do drugs because that’s also bad but the Serena thing is the big thing here.