We haven’t heard much from Serena Williams for a few weeks, ever since her epic tantrum at the US Open, and subsequent apology. Serena hilariously told the line judge “I swear to God, I’m gonna take this f-cking ball and shove it down your f-cking throat.” And then she refused to apologize for three days, which kind of made it worse. But now Serena is out promoting her new autobiography, On the Line, and she wants to appear sympathetic, and not like the kind of girl who would ever, ever say anything like “I swear to God, I’m gonna take this f-cking ball and shove it down your f-cking throat.”

No, I’m being a little harsh on Serena. I thought that U.S. Open incident was funny, and I think the message of On the Line seems to correspond with the idea of Serena as someone who has learned to take care of herself. She’s learned how not to listen to whatever criticism is lobbed her way. Especially about that tricky subject, body image:

Serena Williams has one of the best bodies in sports, but she has still been called fat.

“I went through a really tough stage that took place when I was No. 1 and I had surgery and fell to almost 200 in the ranking,” she told Tyra Banks in an interview to air on her talk show on Thursday (watch video above). “Everyone called me fat, saying I was really unfit. Every [news]paper, the headline was ‘fat, fat, fat.'”

Her body image issues weren’t the only ones she was struggling with. Around that time in 2003, her half-sister, Yetunde Price, was shot and killed in L.A., outside the tennis courts where Williams and her sister Venus once played. The ordeal “was really, really difficult” for Williams.

Williams channeled that pain into an upcoming memoir, On the Line.

“It talks about my journey through that whole situation, playing again when everyone said I couldn’t do it,” she said. “They said I’d never be No. 1, they said I’d never win another grand slam.”

Her introspection helped, she told Banks, adding that she wrote herself “little notes” about “the importance of staying positive.”

Williams admitted that she does not read her own press and has instead stored all those clippings away until she is retired from the game — and ready to deal with them.

“You have to enjoy what you look like,” she said. “Sometimes I read things [that say] I’m too fit or my arms are too muscular, but that’s how I am. This is me, I love me. I think every person out there — man, woman, regardless of age or gender — needs to love themselves.”

That love, she said, even extends to her competitors. Williams, who recently made headlines when she verbally assaulted a line judge during her U.S. Open match, asserts that she is most sorry about letting down those who have supported her.

“I play with a lot of fire, and I play with a lot of passion for everything I do,” Williams said. “I think the worst part was the fans missed out on seeing the end of an amazing match. We played over two hours of amazing tennis.”

To see Banks’ entire interview with Williams — including a segment in which they play a game of tennis on the streets of NYC — tune in to The Tyra Show on Thursday on the CW.

[From Us Weekly]

I can’t even imagine being someone in the public eye with my body being dissected on a daily basis. I would cry all the time. That why I generally hate to do any “Whatsherface is drastically thin” or “Whosit is fat now” stories. People lose and gain weight all the time, sometimes it’s significant, sometimes not. I think it’s pretty smart of Serena not to pay attention to her press – both bad and good. And I buy it, too. Someone reading their own press would have apologized the same day she bitched out a judge.

Here’s Serena at the Miami Dolphins’ season opener against the Indianapolis Colts at Land Shark Stadium in Miami on September 21st. Images thanks to Johnny Louis and WENN.com .