French Are Fried Over Serena’s Grand Slam

After winning the Nasdaq-100 Open, Serena Williams feigned a French accent and joked, “We want to make clothes. We don’t want the war.”

And guess what? The French didn’t find it funny.

Fox Sports News reported that the spoof on anti-French sentiment in the United States has “led to a big-time boycott [of] all things Serena.”

Several Paris boutiques reportedly have removed all clothing endorsed by Williams and a prominent French firm has canceled its plans to design blouses for her.

Freedom swings: An infielder playing high school baseball in Austin, Texas, doesn’t have the platform of a tennis superstar, but Bobby French is getting his message across.

In his way of acknowledging the tensions between the U.S. and France -- and building on a suggestion that New Orleans’ French Quarter be renamed Freedom Quarter -- French has asked the public address announcer at home games to introduce him as “Bobby Freedom.”

Trivia time: What year did the Chicago Bulls lose in the NBA Finals?

No kidding: The Yankees are winning, so maybe George Steinbrenner will find this funny:

The New York Daily News reported that in introducing broadcaster Bobby Murcer at a luncheon recently, radio host Mark Simone told the audience he’d asked the former Yankee slugger if “he’d heard the news that ‘the brutal dictator and his sons were no longer in power.’

Simone said Murcer replied, ‘No kidding, George sold the Yankees?’ ”

A great line -- but one Murcer wanted no credit for.

“I did not say what they said I said about Mr. Steinbrenner,” Murcer told the gathering.

All ball: Pepperdine, Penn State, Brigham Young and Lewis College, the teams participating in the NCAA volleyball championships tonight and Saturday at Long Beach State, have 15 foreign players on their rosters.

That’s more than 25% of the participants, and many of them are key contributors.

One of them, Brazilian Fabiano Barreto, had 23 kills to lead Lewis to a sweep of Loyola of Chicago in the Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. title match, a performance Lewis Coach Dave Deuser called, “an All-America night.”

The Early Show: On this date in 1959, Early Wynn of the Chicago White Sox pitched a one-hitter, struck out 14, and hit a double and home run to beat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0.

Yo, it’s Yao: The wireless video game “Yao Ming Basketball” -- scheduled for release this summer -- will be offered exclusively on China Unicom’s “U-Magic” wireless data service.

We’re guessing it’ll feature several variations of flat-footed, two-hand dunks.

Trivia answer: Never. The Bulls played in the Finals six times -- and won them all.

And finally: Hungary will not bid for the 2012 Olympic Games because -- get this -- officials determined the estimated $21 billion cost would be better spent on health care and highway construction.

Government spokesman Zoltan Gal told Bloomberg News that leaders “decided to put an end to the daydreaming. It won’t jeopardize the country’s reputation by an unfeasible bid.”

-- Mike Hiserman