Serena Williams' husband Alexis Ohanian makes 'petty' Maria Sharapova jab at US Open with D.A.R.E. shirt

'This man brought a bouquet of fresh cut petty'
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Megan C. Hills27 August 2019

On Monday at the US Open, longtime rivals Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova faced off in a match that saw Williams dominate the Russian sportswoman in a 6-1, 6-1 defeat.

While many were captivated by what one Twitter user called “the most dominant effort I’ve ever witnessed from Serena Williams”, her husband Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s off-court behaviour became a major Twitter talking point thanks to his very shady T-shirt.

One Twitter user pointed out that Ohanian was wearing a shirt in support of D.A.R.E. underneath his bomber jacket, an anti-drugs school programme popular in the US in the 80s and 90s.

D.A.R.E, which stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education programme, “envisions a world in which students everywhere are empowered... to lead lives free from violence, substance abuse, and other dangerous behaviours." The shirt can be bought for $6.70.

Underneath the D.A.R.E. logo the shirt reads, "decision making for safe and healthy living".

Some pointed out that this was likely a reference to Sharapova’s doping scandal in 2016, which saw the tennis star suspended from the sport after testing positive for banned substance meldonium.

The International Tennis Foundation initially hit her with a two year ban, but later reduced the sentence to 15 months after she made an appeal.

Sharapova claimed that she did not realise meldonium was on the list of banned substances, as the list had been updated in 2016.

Sharapova and Williams shake hands at the 2019 US Open
Getty Images

Saying that she had made a “huge mistake”, she said, “I did not feel it was a huge responsibility of mine to write all those medications down. As I said before, in hindsight, this is a mistake of mine... I did not feel it was a responsibility to have to write down every single match drink I was taking, gel, vitamin that I was taking, even if I took it once during the last seven days. I did not think it was of high importance.”

She also claimed it was “common” and that she had been taking it under her doctor’s orders, and continued, “I know that it’s on the ‘Vital and Essential’ list in Russia, along with ibuprofen. It’s taken as aspirin in Russia. So to me I can’t even [get] my head around that fact.”

Sharapova at the 2019 US Open
Getty Images

Sharapova was allowed to return to the sport in April 2017 and made a comeback at the Tianjin Open later that year, where she beat tennis star Aryna Sabalenka.

Although Ohanian's apparent dig could have been overlooked, after being spotted by some beady-eyed observers it spread like wildfire on Twitter and prompted a slew of reactions - including one eventually from Ohanian.

Although Ohanian did not directly address the controversy, he did share a GIF of a character known as Qai Qai (based on his daughter Olympia Ohanian’s doll and a similar Shaq reaction GIF) shimmying and looking knowingly at the camera.

Many Twitter users in the comments shared fellow Qai Qai reactions and made reference to the D.A.R.E. shirt.

This isn’t the first time that the spouse of a high profile tennis star has made a literal fashion statement. In 2015, Andy Murray’s then-fiancee Kim Sears was criticised for dropping the f-word on camera during Murray’s semi-final match with Tomas Berdych at the Australian Open.

Getty Images

At the final, she was seen wearing a black sweater which read 'Parental Advisory: Explicit Content'.

Serena Williams' court style over the years

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