[BaselBimbooooo]

I've avoided watching the 2001 Indian Wells final.

Until today. This is what I wrote two games into it:

I'm two games into the match.

Two games.

Having grown up not too far away, Indian Wells was like a home tournament for the sisters.

And you can imagine what's going through Richard Williams' mind, son of a Louisiana sharecropper, as the crowd boos his daughter, reminding him of the booing crowds [mobs] right before they strung somebody up on tree.

He holds out his cell phone during the boos so who's ever on the other end can get a sense of what's going on.

But I'm sure you had to be there to really know.

If I were them, I wouldn't step foot on that property for as long as I drew breath.

It's chilling.

And it looks like it could have been avoided. Pam Shriver says that the tournament officials prepared the ushers for the likely atmosphere.

I'm going to repeat that:

Tournament officials told Pam Shriver that they prepared the ushers for the likely atmosphere.

They saw it coming and they allowed it to happen.

I'm all for free speech, but the tournament director could have simply made a statement before the final verifying Venus' injury and apologizing to the fans on behalf of the event for a situation that, while unfortunate, is entirely understandable. S/he may have even added that athletes get injured at inopportune moments. A player can begin a match and twist her ankle in the first game and be forced to retire. But from all of the tests Venus underwent from all of the resident experts, there was no match fixing going on. They were certain of this and I ask all of you to give these two great finalists the respect they deserve. Enjoy the match.

Or something like that.

It didn't happen. And who knows what went on behind the scenes between the semi and the final anyway. I'm not going to use the "R" word to describe anyone's behavior because it's too incendiary.

But I'm taking my time getting to the end of the match because I feel haunted just watching the damn thing on YouTube.

For me, that is the crux. How do the sisters feel? That's all that matters.

Credit to them: they haven't made this some big political issue. They haven't asked any other player to take up their cause and boycott the event in order to promote justice, or some such. They don't talk about it unless asked, and even then, they have little to say.

They have simply made their choices based upon what they experienced, the extent of which none of us probably know because we're not them and we weren't behind the scenes, and that's that.

They don't need to get over it. They are free women. They don't have to play the event if they don't feel like it.

If they don't want to walk into a haunted house, why should anyone else really care?