wimbledon has begun, and some of the ladies are serving up some #SHADE

y'all probs heard about serena's unflattering rolling stone interview, in which she ALLEGEDLY did a little bit of victim-blaming re: the steubenville rape case. but that's small potatoes in comparison to some shit-talking she did about an unnamed (maria sharapova) fellow competitor:

"There are people who live, breathe and dress tennis. I mean, seriously, give it a rest." Serena exits the car and the conversation moves on to a top-five player who is now in love. "She begins every interview with 'I'm so happy. I'm so lucky' – it's so boring," says Serena in a loud voice. "She's still not going to be invited to the cool parties. And, hey, if she wants to be with the guy with a black heart, go for it." (An educated guess is she's talking about Sharapova, who is now dating Grigor Dimitrov, one of Serena's rumored exes.) 

in the words of joel: "OOOooohhhhHHhHhhh GURRRLLLLL." sharapova took a moment to respond when she told reporters:

"Obviously I have a tremendous amount of respect for Serena and what she's achieved on the court," Sharapova said. "If she wants to talk about something personal, maybe she should talk about her relationship and her boyfriend that was married and is getting a divorce and has kids. Talk about other things, but not draw attention to other things. She has so much in her life, many positives, and I think that's what it should be about." 

advantage: SHARAPOVA!!

but THEN, it seems, serena remembered that she is a lady, or she got scared that maria might have some more things to say:

But even though Williams never acknowledged it was Sharapova she was talking about, Williams said she was "told of the comments," and chased Sharapova down at a party to apologize, probably for fear of another Russian left hook. She chose to squash the budding tennis beef rather than respond. "I made it a point to reach out to Maria as well, because she was inadvertently brought into the situation by assumptions made by the reporter," she said. "I personally talked to Maria at the player party, incidentally. I said: 'Look, I want to personally apologize to you if you are offended by being brought into my situation. I want to take this moment to just pour myself, be open, say I’m very sorry for this whole situation.'"

jicydak, serena has beaten sharapova in their last 12 meetings, and the last time maria won was over NINE years ago. so now you have a reason to follow the ladies' side of the bracket this wimbledon.