AN UNFORCED ERROR FROM STROPPY SERENA

SHE was probably expecting an easier ride, but even so, Serena Williams’s reaction to being asked about her historic use of a TUE certificate after day one at Indian Wells was unnecessarily aggressive. ‘Can you talk louder,’ she ordered the questioner, ‘so everyone can hear you ask about my drugs?’ If it was an attempt at humiliation it was misplaced. In the current climate, every athlete, in whatever circumstance, should be ready to hold forth on this subject: to explain, to justify, to advocate. The more they do that, the less cynicism they will face. How often do you hear now that ‘they’re all at it’? Actually, they’re not. Williams (left) is insistent she never has been and there is no reason to doubt her. But it still requires clean athletes to speak out and not to take offence at what are perfectly legitimate lines of enquiry. To combat drugs, we need to be open about them, too.