Serena has another run-in with official

Serena Williams' explanation for her angry reaction toward chair umpire Eva Asderaki's "verbal hindrance" call in Sunday's U.S. Open women's final was that she was "just trying my best."

Courtside microphones picked up Williams telling Asderaki: "You're out of control. You're a hater, and you're just unattractive inside. I truly despise you."

Asked if she regretted those remarks in the haywire moments midway through Samantha Stosur's crisp 6-2, 6-3 upset, Williams said, "I regret losing."

Already a set down and struggling mightily with unforced errors, Williams had struck a perfect forehand down the line to apparently save a break point at 30-40 in the first game of the second set. With the ball still in flight as Stosur lunged for an improbable backhand get, Williams shouted to the top of Arthur Ashe Stadium, "Come on!"

Asderaki immediately assessed a penalty point, invoking the same ruling levied against Marion Bartoli earlier in the tournament, costing Williams the game. "I'm not giving her that game," Williams told Asderaki as the roiling crowd noise reached a peak of boos. "I promise you. That's not cool. That's not totally cool."

Following the next point, won by Williams, she jogged toward the chair and shook her racket at Asderaki and was given a code violation -- essentially a warning, though Open referee Brian Earley issued a statement saying a fine could be tacked on after a review.

In an apparent reference to the 2009 foot-fault call in the semifinal match with Kim Clijsters, Williams asked the chair umpire if she was the official who cost her "the last time." Williams lost the match to Clijsters and missed last year's Open with a foot injury.

The umpire in that match was Louise Engzell, not Asderaki.

"I don't know," Williams said. "I was just out there trying to fight against a great player who played really, really well."

During the two-week Open, Williams several times dismissed questions about that Clijsters' match -- "You're still thinking about that?" she said -- and Sunday night, asked if she felt any remorse over her words to Asderaki, she said: "I don't even remember what I said. It was just so intense out there."

Williams did not offer the customary handshake to Asderaki after the match and, asked whether she believed elite athletes should show respect to referees and officials, she said, "I don't know. I think, when you're an athlete . . . we train all our lives . . . We live for these moment, you know.

"Whatever happens in that moment, you live for them and breathe for them, and hopefully I'll be back for them."