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By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, December 4, 2018

 
Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova

Maria Sharapova shared locker-room secrets about Serena Williams, who threw the book at the Russian in response sparking flames in an ongoing feud.

Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve

Welcome to the inaugural Tennis Now 25, where we celebrate the best popcorn moments of the 2018 tennis season, and award 25 "Popcorn Awards" to honor the most breathtaking and memorable performances of 2018.

About the Awards:

The #TN25 is designed not simply to remember the best matches, comebacks or Grand Slam performances. What we aim to accomplish here is to dig deeper into the archives so that we may celebrate some of the more offbeat and difficult to quantify performances.

Men's Fiercest Feud Award: Ryan Harrison vs. Donald Young

This is our first time doling out these awards, and our attempt to veer away from the typical year-end rundown is genuine in that we feel it echoes the season of giving. What we aim to give is praise and thanks to those who made the season memorable on many levels...

Surely, with this being a new process for our editorial staff, there will be a few bumps along the road. Here and there we suspect that our valued readership may find a few things to disagree with (surprise!). If that's the case, take to social media using the hashtag #TN25 and tell us what we missed or where we could have done better.

As the players like to say after they win their titles—none of this would have been possible without you guys, and that's why we are going to put some of the awards to a Twitter vote in December, so stay tuned for that.

But for now, we must get to the awards because we have another winner!

The Fiercest Feud: Serena Williams vs. Maria Sharapova

The Fiercest Award goes to two players who were incensed by their opponent during the course of battle this season.

And the winner is... SERENA WILLIAMS vs. MARIA SHARAPOVA.

The bad blood between these two can boil sending vitriol to volcanic levels even when they don't meet on court.



Tennis Now 25

Although they haven't squared off since 2016, there's sometimes the sense the two top divas on Tour are one row away from full-on road rage collision.

Before Williams ceded a walkover to Sharapova in the French Open fourth round, she threw the book at the Russian.

Williams is an avid reader and did not appreciate the stories Sharapova shared about her in her memoir, Unstoppable: My Life So Far.

"I think the book was 100 percent hearsay," Williams told the media in Paris. "At least all the stuff I read and the quotes that I read, which was a little disappointing."

The 23-time Grand Slam champion disputed how Sharapova recounted their relationship calling passages of the book "not necessarily true."

"The book was a lot about me," Williams told the media in Paris. "I was surprised about that, to be honest. You know, I was like, 'Oh, okay. I didn't expect to be reading a book about me, that wasn't necessarily true.' So I was like, 'This is really interesting, but... I don't know.' I didn't know how she looked up to me that much or was so involved in my career."



The former world No. 1 suggested what annoyed her most about Sharapova's revelations is that they came after both Serena and older sister Venus both publicly made supportive comments about Sharapova in the aftermath of her testing positive for the banned drug meldonium following her 2016 Australian Open quarterfinal loss to Serena.

"I don't have any negative feelings towards her, which again, was a little disappointing to see in that hearsay book," Williams told the media. "And I was one of the few people that (was with) her whole drug incident, I was like, 'She was brave to say something.' I didn't have anything negative to say about Maria. So of course, I wanted to read (Unstoppable) and just see what was going on."

Sharapova said she has a right to tell her story her way.

"Well, I think it would be strange for me not to include someone that I have competed against for so many years", Sharapova told the media at Roland Garros.“I think there is a lot of autobiographies out in the world, especially in the sporting world, that don't necessarily speak about whether they were rivals or someone they competed against.

“And I think we played many matches. Some of those matches were very defining for me. “It would be very, strange, I think, if I didn't write anything about her. I think everyone would ask."

The five-time Grand Slam champion shot down Williams' assertion the book was "100 percent hearsay."

“When you're writing an autobiography, I don't think there is any reason to write anything that's not true,” Sharapova said. In her memoir, Sharapova writes her rift with Williams is rooted in the fact she saw Serena break down in tears following the Russian's stunning victory in the 2004 Wimbledon final. Sharapova writes Williams “has never forgiven me” for beating her in the 2004 Wimbledon final and for seeing Serena break down weeping afterward.

The five-time Grand Slam champion recounts seeing Serena sobbing “guttural sobs” and believes seeing raw, vulnerability in the 23-time Grand Slam champion is the real reason why Serena “hates” her.


The future Hall of Famers join an esteemed collection of elite champions whose rivalries crackled with deep desire to beat each other's brains out:

John McEnroe vs. Jimmy Connors
Andre Agassi vs. Boris Becker
Martina Hingis vs. Williams Family
Pancho Gonzalez vs. All comers


Honorable Mention Fierce Feuds

Sloane Stephens, brand ambassador for chocolate milk, went Cap'n Crunch on Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in a mid-match Beijing battle.

When the Russian requested a medical time-out for a shoulder issue before Stephens served for the second set, the 2017 US Open champion called out Pavlyuchenkova for gamesmanship in comments to the chair umpire.

Pavlyuchenklova didn't appreciate the accusation.




"Don't be ridiculous, don't be ridiculous," Stephens snapped. "You wanna call your coach? No, you're disrespectful."

Pavlyuchenkova protested saying she was within rights to take the medical timeout.

"You got what you wanted, you got the physio, so I don't see what the problem is," said Stephens sitting on her court-side seat.

That comment seemed to spark Pavlyuchenkova who stood up and walked over to Stephens' side before chair umpire Jenny Zhang interceded, impeding the Russian's path preventing the squabble from escalating.



Rain wreaked havoc with the Montreal schedule and sparked a storm in Simona Halep.

Forced to play multiple matches in a 48-hour span, the world No. 1 was not happy being assigned a 1 p.m. semifinal against 15th-seeded Ashleigh Barty after defeating Caroline Garcia the prior evening.

Unloading on the WTA, Halep suggested schedule sabotage.

"Because if you look at the schedule, I think I'm the only one person and player who has the worst schedule during the week," Halep told the media in Montreal. "I think this happens almost every tournament. I saw that tomorrow I play at 1:00.

"So I think WTA is a little bit upset with me because they always try to put me down, I can say, in the schedule. And I'm very upset about this. Tomorrow I'm going to go on court and I will try to give my best. I have nothing to lose. It's a semifinal. So I just go there and I try to play."



The Roland Garros champion claimed it wasn't the first time she's been victimized by the schedule.

"If you check the schedule this tournament, and many other tournaments, you can see what is right and what is not right," Halep said. "My opponent has already six hours at the hotel resting, and I just finished the match and I'm doing now these things.

"I'll be very late again. Yesterday I played two matches. I feel like today I should have played second match in the night, and also tomorrow at 6, not at 1. This is my opinion."

Asked if she has issues with the WTA, Halep replied: "I don't know. You have to ask them. I have no problems with anyone."

 

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