By Chris Oddo | Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Venus Williams was fined $5,000 for skipping a mandatory press conference after her first-round loss on Tuesday in Melbourne.
Photo Source: Mark Peterson/Corleve
After her fifth first-round loss at a major in the last five years, Venus Williams was in no mood to chat about it. Now she’ll have to pay.
The 35-year-old world No. 10 skipped her mandatory press conference with the media on Tuesday in Melbourne, and has been assessed with a $5K fine, reports Nick McCarvel of USA Today.
It’s not the first time Williams has elected to pay up rather than speak up. After her first-round loss at Roland Garros last year, Williams was hit with a $3K fine. In 2010, after she lost a doubles match at Wimbledon, both Serena and Venus and Serena skipped press duties and were fined $4k each.
According to McCarvel, Williams’ fine marks the eighth time a WTA player has been fined for skipping media since 2000.
Though we can only speculate about Venus’s reasons for skipping media, constant questions about whether or not each Grand Slam is going to be her last Grand Slam could have something to do with it. She’s certainly taken her share of those questions in the past.
Williams became the oldest player to claim a spot in the WTA’s top-10 since 1990 last year. She was the oldest woman entered in the Australian Open draw this year, but fell to Great Britain’s Johanna Konta, 6-4, 6-2 on Tuesday.