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Venus Williams And Sallie Krawcheck Sit Down With LinkedIn Executive Editor Dan Roth

Source: Gary Gershoff / Getty

How quickly things turn around. As we reported yesterday, tennis icon Venus Williams was subjected to utterly disrespectful commentary during the Australian Open by ESPN announcer Doug Adler. Well today ESPN has decided what his punishment should be and let’s just say you won’t have to hear him on-air for the foreseeable future.

Social media was in an uproar yesterday when footage of ESPN announcer Doug Adler, referring to Venus Williams’ tennis stance as that of a “gorilla,” made the rounds online. Now, The Root is reporting that ESPN has decided to officially remove Adler from commentating the remainder of the Australian Open as well as his remaining assignments.
ESPN released an official statement regarding the incident and Adler’s remarks:

“During an Australian Open stream on ESPN3, Doug Adler should have been more careful in his word selection. He apologized and we have removed him from his remaining assignments.”
 
For his part, Adler claims that he did not intend to refer to Venus as a “gorilla,” but instead meant the “guerilla” style. Um, ok. Hopefully next time he will think before he speaks when describing one of the world’s greatest athletes.

Announcer Who Referred To Venus Williams As A ‘Gorilla’ Removed From Tennis Coverage  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com