Before Worst Loss of Her Career, Shocking News for Serena

Williams found out right before worst loss of career her half-sister's killer had been paroled
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 17, 2018 9:24 AM CDT
Serena Williams 'Couldn't Shake' Jarring News Before Big Defeat
Serena Williams reacts during a match against Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic at the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament on Tuesday in Mason, Ohio.   (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Serena Williams suffered the worst loss of her career at the end of July, and now there's more context as to why that may have happened. What Bleacher Report deems "tough news" came Williams' way right before her match with the UK's Johanna Konta. She details that news for Time, revealing she discovered 10 minutes before she took the court that the man who'd shot her half-sister to death in 2003 had been let out on parole earlier in the year. "I couldn't shake it out of my mind," Williams says of the news she saw on Instagram.

She compares the fate of her sister, Yetunde Price, with that of Price's killer—"my sister is not coming back for good behavior"—and says that while she hopes to one day forgive the man who did it, she's "not there yet." People notes that, per jail records and Los Angeles County sheriff's officials, the killer, Robert Edward Maxfield, was re-arrested in late July for allegedly violating his parole, then re-released a few days later. Read more on Williams' "complicated comeback" here. (The tennis phenom recently pulled out of the Rogers Cup because she "felt like I was not a good mom.")

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