Jump to content

 

 

Serena Williams - Bully and Liar


Recommended Posts

39 minutes ago, stewarty said:

The very fact that there continue to be various people coming out and debating the points suggest to me that there is much more to this than meets the eye. 

The WTA and Sue Barker have their income to think about.  And as we saw with the #metoo malarkey, people are pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon in order to further their careers.  

 

Unless we can find an example of a man behaving in exactly the same fashion towards an umpire, it's almost impossible to determine whether sexism is involved.  Most players will have incidents with umpires but Williams' incidents are especially heated and she tends to get quite personal.  There's not much doubt about that.

 

The main sexual inequality in modern tennis is women being paid the same as men, despite only have to play the best of 3 sets, where men have to play the best of 5.  Now, that is just unfair.  

Link to post
Share on other sites

The Umpire Strikes Back

 

The officials have their say, from today's Times;

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/umpires-may-boycott-serena-williams-matches-after-outburst-at-us-open-final-fwgv97swz

 

Umpires may boycott Serena Williams matches after outburst at US Open final

exclusive

Stuart Fraser, Tennis Correspondent, New York

September 11 2018, 12:01am, The Times

 

Williams called Ramos a “thief” and a “liar” during her defeat by Osaka

 

Umpires are considering refusing to officiate matches involving Serena Williams, such is the level of discontent over the treatment of Carlos Ramos during and after the US Open final.

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and United States Tennis Association (USTA) have backed Williams’ claims of sexism after she was given a game penalty for her behaviour during her straight-sets defeat by Naomi Osaka, of Japan, on Saturday.

This has further riled some umpires, who were already unhappy with the haphazard organisation of this year’s US Open.

An anonymous official told The Times that there was a growing consensus that umpires were “not supported” by the USTA on several occasions, and that Ramos was “thrown to the wolves for simply doing his job and was not willing to be abused for it”.

Umpires are discussing whether they could take action to stand up for their profession. One suggestion being floated is to refuse any match assignments involving Williams until she apologises for vilifying Ramos and calling him a “liar” and a “thief”.

It will take quite an effort to convince all umpires to agree to this action, but events in recent weeks are said to have united a group who lack an effective body to properly represent their interests.

 

Ramos, an experienced Portuguese umpire who has worked in the sport for close to three decades, is understood to be in good spirits despite the intense focus that he is under. However, as another official pointed out, the paltry sum of £370 — a standard daily fee — that he received for overseeing the final is not worth the potential repercussions in a match with high stakes.

 

Yesterday, the ITF, for whom Ramos is a contracted “gold badge” umpire, issued a statement to support his handling of the final. Under the grand-slam rule book, all three violations he issued — following the three-step penalty process of warning-point-game — were correct.

“Carlos Ramos is one of the most experienced and respected umpires in tennis,” the statement read. “Mr Ramos’s decisions were in accordance with the relevant rules and were reaffirmed by the US Open’s decision to fine Ms Williams for the three offences.

“It is understandable that this high-profile and regrettable incident should provoke debate. At the same time, it is important to remember that Mr Ramos undertook his duties as an official according to the relevant rulebook and acted at all times with professionalism and integrity.”

 

This is at odds with the view of Steve Simon, the WTA chief executive, who sided with Williams in his statement on Sunday night — the timing of its release just minutes after Novak Djokovic had won a 14th grand-slam title raised eyebrows.

Simon has a history of pandering to star players — his handling of Maria Sharapova’s controversial comeback was particularly weak — and did not condemn Williams’s behaviour.

“Yesterday brought to the forefront the question of whether different standards are applied to men and women in the officiating of matches,” Simon said. “The WTA believes that there should be no difference in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men versus women and is committed to working with the sport to ensure that all players are treated the same. We do not believe that this was done last night.

“We also think the issue of coaching needs to be addressed and should be allowed across the sport. The WTA supports coaching through its on-court coaching rule, but further review is needed.”

 

Djokovic, a member of the ATP player council, does not agree with Simon that men and women are treated differently by umpires, but believes that Ramos overstepped the mark. It must be noted that Djokovic has recent history with Ramos, receiving violations for throwing his racket during the Wimbledon quarter-finals and coaching during his French Open match at the same stage.

“I love Serena, first of all,” Djokovic said. “I really felt for her. It is a tough thing for a chair umpire to deal with, as well. We have to empathise with him. Everyone was in a very awkward situation. A lot of emotions. Serena was crying. Naomi was crying. It was really, really tough.

“But I have my personal opinion that maybe the chair umpire should not have pushed Serena to the limit, especially in a grand-slam final. He did change the course of the match. It was, in my opinion, maybe unnecessary. We all go through our emotions, especially when you’re fighting for a grand-slam trophy.

“I don’t see things as Mr Simon does, I really don’t. I think men and women are treated in this way or the other way depending on the situation. It’s hard to generalise things, really. I don’t see it as necessary really to debate that.”

 

The Williams/Ramos episode was one of several controversies during the tournament, some of which were caused by the woeful implementation of rules by the USTA. Andy Murray was among the complainants, bemoaning the enforcement of the heat policy after claiming his opponent, Fernando Verdasco, was communicating with his coach during a locker-room break.

Adding to the unrest among umpires is that the USTA stated its “regret” in Christian Rask, a Danish official, warning Alizé Cornet, for changing her top. Yet, at a pre-tournament briefing, umpires were issued with a directive that US Open policy was that female players were not allowed to remove their kit on court.

Despite all this, Katrina Adams, the president of the USTA, still felt it necessary to publicly criticise the officiating of Ramos. “There is no equality when it comes to what the men are doing to the chair umpires and what the women are doing, and there has to be some consistency across the board at every level of officiating,” Adams told ESPN.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Meanwhile n the same newspaper, an article from the distaff court

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/angry-women-like-serena-are-treated-differently-but-umpire-was-not-sexist-jgzxd2h5q

 

 

Inequality exists but umpire’s treatment of Serena Williams was opposite of that

alyson rudd

 

I’ll admit it, when I heard Serena Williams say she was “fighting for women’s rights and for women’s equality and for all kinds of stuff”, I caught my breath.

I had been engrossed by the women’s US Open final and yes, enthralled by her meltdown on court. I had found it entertaining. It was one of those sagas that you know, even as it unfolds, that you will never forget.

I felt very smug that I had bought a Fire Stick that enabled me to watch Amazon Prime on my big screen. This match made it worth every penny.

 

Not once did I think that Williams was fighting for me. Not once did I think about Emily Davison, who threw herself under a horse so that I would be able to vote. Not once did I think about Billie Jean King, who managed to combine a glittering career with grindingly frustrating negotiations for equal pay.

 

I felt, momentarily, guilty. I had missed the point. This was not a diva behaving badly, this was a woman courageously pointing out on the big stage that she was being treated differently to her male counterparts. We all know that change only happens if some of us are brave and shout down discrimination. This was a watershed moment, a chance for tennis to rethink its attitude, for society to address the prism through which it views successful women.

Or at least it was until I remembered that there were two women on court, one who was 20 years old and whose hero is Williams. Naomi Osaka has a Japanese mother and Haitian father and her family have suffered prejudice as a consequence. The only way she was likely to defeat Williams was if she pushed aside her hero worship and kept her cool. She would have expected Williams to have the crowd’s support; she would have expected Williams to be ruthless; she would have expected Williams to be fair.

 

During her rant at the umpire, Williams even brought up the fact she has a daughter, a girl who will one day be 20 but making her own living, perhaps, looking for guidance. Williams was not, though, fighting for the right of Osaka to get angry one day. She simply became incensed by an umpire who is a stickler for the rules whether he is in charge of men or women.

Equality takes many forms and the fact that Carlos Ramos was not kinder to the fairer sex is, surely, the ultimate expression of equality. He was blind to the gender of the person shouting at him rather than deliberately draconian because the player calling him a thief was female.

 

There has been plenty of support for Williams, most significantly from King who made the point that women who argue are viewed as hysterical but men who shout are seen as outspoken. This is broadly true.

Anger in women is dismissed as hormonal and unstable weakness. It is unattractive, it is counterproductive. Anger in men is interesting, a sign of strength, a thing to fear, a trait that can change outcomes — and it is of no harm at all if the furore over the women’s final makes us address that nuanced form of inequality. But Williams is not your average woman. She might have begun from a position of relative weakness and inequality but she is now a privileged sports star. With fame, success and wealth comes responsibility, the paving of the way for the next generation.

 

Motherhood is commonplace, not a miracle deserving of special privileges. It is a beautiful thing to be a parent, but Williams undermined her slant on the row by speaking of her own daughter and not seeing that, in a way, she is a mother to all aspiring sportswomen. She should watch back the footage of the way Osaka tossed the balls to the other side of the court when the umpire told both players that he had issued a game penalty. This was a young woman in the grips of disillusionment, watching her idol disintegrate only for her to then say she was spoiling Osaka’s greatest achievement on her behalf.

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Gonzo79 said:

The WTA and Sue Barker have their income to think about.  And as we saw with the #metoo malarkey, people are pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon in order to further their careers.  

 

Unless we can find an example of a man behaving in exactly the same fashion towards an umpire, it's almost impossible to determine whether sexism is involved.  Most players will have incidents with umpires but Williams' incidents are especially heated and she tends to get quite personal.  There's not much doubt about that.

 

The main sexual inequality in modern tennis is women being paid the same as men, despite only have to play the best of 3 sets, where men have to play the best of 5.  Now, that is just unfair.  

I would agree that there are definitely vested interests at play.   However,  I may be picking you up wrong but you seem to be agreeing that there is an inequality based on gender within tennis, and thus agreeing with Williams to an extent.   I'm not sure how the possible inability to find an equilvalent set of circumstances does anything other than further underline the point.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

The two Times articles are quite good in terms of playing out the arguments.  In other words, Williams most certainly over-reacted and is deserving of criticism.  She's reacted emotionally and was lashing out, but the wider context is one of there being a complex set of forces at play which are deserving of a light being shone on them.  Just because it came out when she was less measured in her tone, doesn't mean they should be dismissed out of hand.


 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the Times articles do that pretty well.

 

However, there's accusations of racism, sexism and general discrimination.  Vested interests between the likes of broadcasters, journalists, Grand Slam tournament organisers, the likes of the WTA and other tennis bodies.  There's inherent inequality as mentioned before.   

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 10/09/2018 at 04:51, stewarty said:

That's the bit I'm struggling with because as much as it seems she lost her temper, she doesn't strike me as the kind of person to do that for no reason.

She is that kind of person. She has a history of outbursts like this when losing a match. I think it's also significant that a host of retired greats from the womens game are all criticising her outburst. She's simply a bad loser who was just a few points from inevitably losing the match anyway.

 

It's an inevitable sequence of events.

 

Coaching, infraction, warning.

 

Racquet abuse, point.

 

Umpire abuse, third infraction, lose a game.

 

I have seen Andy Murray penalised for racquet abuse too so this isn't about sexism.

 

 

She's just pissed that she was on the verge of equaling a grand slam record and this girl who had never won a slam was soundly beating her and would have soon finished the match regardless. But hey, I don't have a daughter so who am I to comment. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, stewarty said:

 I'm not sure how the possible inability to find an equilvalent set of circumstances does anything other than further underline the point.

All it underlines is that no other players (male or female) have behaved in exactly the same way as Williams did.

 

She couldn't take getting beat and lost it.  It's as simple as that.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.