Why the Williams Sisters Boycotted Indian Wells for 14 Years

Four minutes before a semi-final at Indian Wells in March 2001, Venus Williams withdrew with a knee injury. Her sister went through to the final without hitting a ball. By the time Serena walked out to play it, nearly sixteen thousand people had already decided what they had just watched. She won the title. She was booed when she walked on, booed between points, and booed when she won. Venus and her father were booed on the way to their seats, in front of the cameras, for the length of the walk — and Venus had not played at all. Neither sister entered Indian Wells again for fourteen years. This film does not try to settle what was shouted from the stands that afternoon. Richard Williams has said for twenty-five years that he and Venus were subjected to racial abuse. The tournament disputed it at the time. No recording has ever been produced, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What happened afterwards, though, was written down — in a rulebook, in a fine schedule, and in a set of phone calls. In 2009 the tour made Indian Wells compulsory for its top players. Miss it, and the penalty was a fine and a ban from the next two events. But the same page offered a way out: promotional work for the tournament you had skipped, inside a hundred and twenty-five miles of it. Serena Williams lived a hundred and twenty-eight miles away. In the first year that rule existed, a WTA spokesman said the sisters had taken the promotional option and would not be suspended. No promotional activity was ever announced. In October 2014 the president of the Russian Tennis Federation made a remark about the two of them on late-night television. The WTA fined him twenty-five thousand dollars — the maximum its own rules allowed — suspended him for a year and demanded a personal apology, all within four days. Thirteen years earlier, a remark made at a tournament had gone unanswered entirely. Getting Serena back took fourteen months of conversations, ending on a call with the tournament's owner. She had one condition: she would announce it herself, in her own words. In March 2015 she walked out into a standing ovation from the same stadium. Nobody called Venus. Her agency stated it plainly: she had not been asked to return, and nobody from the tournament had been in contact about it. She went back anyway, a year later, on her own terms — and lost in the second round to a qualifier. There was never a hearing. Nobody was charged with anything. What the record holds instead is a set of numbers. CHAPTERS 0:00 Indian Wells, California, March 2001 0:09 Four minutes before the semi-final 1:05 Who they were in 2001 1:59 Where they came from 2:51 The final, and the booing 3:40 What is documented, what is alleged 4:31 In 2001, skipping it was allowed 5:30 The years they were not there 6:29 2009: the rule tightens 7:34 The penalty nobody paid 9:12 October 2014 10:36 Fourteen months of phone calls 11:24 Serena comes back 12:12 Nobody called Venus 12:55 What the record says SOURCES WTA statements and rulebooks, including the sanction of 17 October 2014. Joel Drucker, ESPN, 2009 — the 125-mile promotional radius and the 128-mile distance. Tennis-X, 12 March 2009 — "Williams Sisters Skip Indian Wells, Skip Penalty." Sports Illustrated, 12 and 15 March 2013 — two opposing pieces, three days apart. Howard Bryant, espnW, 2015 — the negotiations, Raymond Moore, Jill Smoller, Stacey Allaster. Serena Williams, Time, 4 February 2015 — her essay announcing the return. Serena Williams with Daniel Paisner, "On the Line," 2009. Venus Williams, The Player's Tribune, 2016. Two things in this film are deliberately left open, because the record leaves them open: what was shouted in that stadium, and whether any fine was ever actually paid after 2009. Where we could not find a document, we say so on screen.