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The comment is made in one paragraph of a lengthy story posted online Tuesday about Williams, a 16-time Grand Slam title winner who is ranked No 1 heading into Wimbledon, which starts next week.
Two players from the celebrated Steubenville, Ohio, high school football team were convicted in March of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl; one of the boys was ordered to serve an additional year for photographing the girl naked.
The case gained widespread attention in part because of the callousness with which other students used social media to gossip about it.
According to the Rolling Stone story, Williams says the perpetrators of the crime "did something stupid," and she asks: "Do you think it was fair, what they got?"
She adds, "I'm not blaming the girl, but if you're a 16-year-old and you're drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don't take drinks from other people."
And Williams also is quoted as saying: "... she shouldn't have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that's different."
Williams is in England preparing for Wimbledon.
Her agent, who also is in England, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday night.
