Serena Williams Responds To Ex-Tennis Star Ilie Nastase’s Racist Remarks On Her Unborn Child

Retired Romanian tennis player Ilie Nastase has made some racially insensitive comments about Serena Williams’ unborn baby, and the American star is understandably very upset.

Serena Williams Fires Back At Ilie Nastase Over Racist Baby Comments

Last Wednesday, 35-year-old Williams announced that she and her fiancé Alexis Ohanian, who is white, are expecting their first child.

According to the Guardian’s Lawrence Ostlere, Nastase, 70, said the following of the 23-time Grand Slam champion’s unborn mixed-race offspring at a press conference on Friday: “Let’s see what color it is. Chocolate with milk?”

Williams quickly took to Instagram to release a statement expressing her anger with these remarks.

“It disappoints me to know we live in a society where people like Nastase can make such racist comments towards myself and unborn child, and sexist comments against my peers,” she wrote. “I will continue to take a lead and stand up for what’s right.”

Williams continued with a poetic statement: “You may shoot me with your words… you may try to kill me with your hatefulness, but still like air, I rise.”

She finished by thanking the International Tennis Federation “for any consideration given to all the facts in this case,” and added the ITF has her “full support.”

The ITF provisionally suspended Nastase from its events after he was ejected from a Fed Cup match between Romania and Great Britain on Saturday for verbal abuse, per CNN’s Danielle Rossingh.

Press Association tennis correspondent Eleanor Crooks tweeted a video of Nastase being escorted to the locker rooms in Constanta, Romania following Nastase’s verbal harassment of British tennis star Johanna Konta during her match against his compatriot, Sorana Cirstea.

Konta reportedly cried after her mistreatment at the hands of Nastase, who became upset with a chair umpire and then laced profanity at members of the Great Britain delegation

“I don’t regret it and they can send me to prison if they want,” Nastase said of his actions.

“It was crazy, it was crazy,” Nastase told the Associated Press of his suspension, and though he said he believed the punishment he received was disproportionately larger than the offense he committed, he did concede, “Yes, I lost my temper.”

He also refused to apologize for his comments about Williams’s child, saying, “I don’t know what all the fuss is about.”

The Romanian legend also previously made unsubstantiated allegations of doping against Williams, citing only her physical appearance as his basis for the claims.

Nastase, who was nicknamed “Nasty” during the peak of his career for his fiery on-court personality, told the AP on Monday that he considers the American superstar a friend and added, “I want to know, what word I used is racist?”

According to Rossingh, Nastase also made Britain captain Anne Keothavong uncomfortable at Saturday’s Fed Cup match by asking for her hotel room number several times before her match.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – JANUARY 26: Serena Williams of the United States serves in her semifinal match against Mirjana Lucic-Baroni of Croatia on day 11 of the 2017 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 26, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)