By Chris Oddo | Monday July 2, 2018
Serena Williams has never tested positive for a performance enhancing drug, but she has been tested often. Williams elaborated on recent discoveries she has made thanks to a Deadspin article that went viral earlier in the week, when a reporter by the name of Laura Wagner wrote a story entitled “An Anti-Doping Agent Occupied Serena Williams’s Property And Everyone Is Being Squirrelly About It.”
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The impetus for the story came when Deadspin received a tip from a passenger on an airplane in San Francisco that overheard WTA CEO Steve Simon making calls about a missed drug test involving Williams.
Williams was first asked about how she felt about the fact that the information got out to the public domain even though it was never intended to.
“I guess when you're in my position, you mention my name, maybe people hear things, overhear stuff, they want to tell the press,” she said. “It is what it is. It's something that I've been learning to deal with and I've dealt with for a long time in my life.”
Williams said that the article was interesting, and revealing, to her, because it contained a link to a USADA data base that contains all information about tests taken by American tennis players since 2001. Williams has been tested 41 times since 2001, and only three Americans (Mike Bryan, Bob Bryan and Venus Williams) have been tested more.
“I actually thought the article was interesting, to be honest, because I never knew that I was tested so much more than everyone else,” she said. “Until I read that article, I didn't realize it was such a discrepancy with me as well as against the other players that they listed, at least with the American players, both male and female.”
But it’s this year, when Williams has slipped in the rankings and hardly played, that Williams has been tested far more than her peers. The test she missed would have been her sixth in the first sixth month of the season.
“It will be impossible for me not to feel some kind of way about that. I found it quite interesting,” she said.
At the end of the press conference, American journalist Sandra Harwitt asked Williams to confirm if she had actually missed the test, and if so why.
The answer was yes.
“For some reason they showed up in the morning, which they are allowed to do,” Williams said. “If I'm not there, then they just leave. For whatever reason they didn't leave. They said, I can come back. I was like, ‘I'm totally not in the area because my hour is actually a long time from now. I'm completely so far away.’”
Williams said that USADA marked her with a missed test; players only get to miss two tests and on the third they are punished. “I guess they decided it was a missed test, which really doesn't make sense,” she said. “If you think about it, anyone would logically think about it that I would otherwise have to be home 24 hours a day, or I get a missed test. You only get three missed tests.”
Williams isn’t happy about the missed test mark, but did not announce plans to fight it. “For me it's a little frustrating. How can I have a missed test when it's nowhere near the time I should be there? It's really disappointing."
At the heart of Williams’ concern is the fact that she is ranked 181 in the world and it’s not typical for lower-ranked players to be tested so often. Then again, nobody believes that Williams ranking has anything to do with where she is as a tennis player.
“Normally [testing patterns] goes on ranking,” she said. “How is it I'm getting tested five times in June? It's only June, I've been tested five times.”
She added: “I'm okay with that. Literally verbatim I said, 'I'm going with that, as long as everyone is being treated equally.' That's all I care about. I despise having people in our sport that aren't being honest. I'm totally okay with testing and I encourage it. … What I want to know is everyone is getting tested, that we are really working to keep this sport clean.”