DAMN! SERENA WILLIAMS LOSES IT & THREATENS TO SHOVE THE BALL DOWN A LINESWOMAN THROAT!

So we are all supposed to rejoice today because Kim Clijsters, nice person and new mother, defeated Serena Williams, dilettante and tantrum thrower. It happened Saturday night at Ashe Stadium, 6-4, 7-5, in a circus finish to a semifinal that really didn't represent closure at all.
Really, it was all just very sad, lamentable. First there was the absurd foot-fault call by an overzealous lineswoman on an extremely critical point in that last game, on Williams' second serve at 15-30. Replays indicated it wasn't a foot fault at all. Then Williams was storming around, getting nailed with a second warning and losing match point, for threatening the lineswoman over the call.

It wasn't pretty, for sure. In a profane tirade, Williams threatened to shove a ball down the throat of the lineswoman. The lineswoman then relayed that unpleasantry to the chair umpire, Louise Engzell, and to tournament referee Brian Earley, who told Serena she was done for the night.

Such a shame, for a ton of reasons. The moment cheated Clijsters of a clean victory, one she had otherwise earned over more than an hour and a half of baseline battling. It was no fluke. Clijsters beat Serena soundly at her own, powerful groundstroke game. She knocked off her second Williams sister in a week, fed off the pace again and always made Serena hit one more shot, then one more shot after that.

Serena hates to lose, and fought to the last drizzle out there. She threw her racket after the first set, which earned her the first code violation. But lose she did. As resolute and powerful as she is, there remains something lacking in Serena's game: variety of shotmaking. Against a quick-footed automaton like Clijsters, it would help to throw a slice or a volley into the mix.

That wasn't going to happen, and so Serena Williams will not tie Billie Jean King quite yet at 12 major titles.

"She could have kept her cool," said her mother, Oracene.

Instead what we get is this prime-time final tonight between Clijsters of Belgium and Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, which will be watched by only the biggest tennis fans and is precisely what the USTA deserves for its absurd scheduling this whole week.

Here's the trouble with rooting against Serena, which was not an uncommon occurrence Saturday night at the National Tennis Center: You end up with two women in the final who must be explained to the American public, at the biggest U.S. tournament.

And you get Serena being treated as a villain by commentators like Dick Enberg, who on CBS said, "That's not what champions do."