Tennis: Insults for Shriver: McQuillan unleashes verbal volleys

ON A dark, damp day here you would have thought the players would have been happy to slip away from court as fast as possible. Rachel McQuillan was determined to linger long enough to leave the DFS Classic with a little verbal reminder, however.

After being beaten 6-0, 6-4 in the third round by the eighth seed, Pam Shriver, her mouth was far more effective than her strokes had been.

'You're old,' the 22-year-old Australian told her 31-year-old opponent. 'You're haggard. And you ought to retire.'

This outburst had followed a match that turned acrimonious after a two-hour rain interruption. Players should return to the chairs they occupied before the delay, but McQuillan sat in Shriver's and refused to move even when the umpire asked her to.

'She said nothing I would go home and cry about,' Shriver, a four-times winner here, said. 'I say the same to myself every day. We had a verbal volley at the net. It was back and forth, we both did pretty well.'