Mary Carillo, Pam Shriver have interesting debate about Serena Williams

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Interesting debate during Wednesday night’s Australian Open tennis coverage, which was a discussion of the combative remarks made by Serena Williams about the fine she received for threatening behavior toward a lineswoman during last year’s U.S. Open. Williams had been called for a foot fault at a penultimate point and the point penalty cost her the match against eventual champion Kim Clijsters.

A couple of months after the Open, Williams was fined about $92,000 and put on probation though it’s not clear what would need to happen for Williams to get suspended. It’s kind of like double secret probation.

Anyway, during Williams’ easy win over Petra Kvitova, ESPN’s Mary Carillo asserted that the fine and the lack of an immediate suspension was devaluing the integrity of the game -- especially after Serena said in a news conference in Melbourne that her relatively large fine is proof that she is ‘living in a man’s world.’

“I think we still sort of, say, live in a man’s world,” Williams said, when asked directly if the she thought the punishment would have been milder if she were a man. “I’m the first to say that I like men to be strong, to be leaders. I think that’s absolutely important. But I just think at the same time some incidents can bring you back to life and back into reality.”

Carillo cited NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s supposedly tough treatment of NFL miscreants and NBA Commissioner David Stern, for example, taking strong and swift action against gun-showing Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas.

Pam Shriver disagreed strongly, asking Carillo to point out where Goodell had ever been so hard and Shriver offered evidence that no NFL player has been fined as much as Serena.

The ‘discussion’ was great, with Carrillo and Shriver fervently arguing their points. No one’s mind was changed but the television was interesting.

-- Diane Pucin