To not appreciate Serena using sexism in her arguments against umpire

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Sorry if there is a thread, I did scan four pages to check.

Serena gets coached (which her coach admits) but claims she didn't see it. Then smashes a racquet in separate fit of temper. Then tells the umpire she can't be a cheat because she's a mother(!), he will never referee a match again with her, and he's a thief.

The punishments all seem fine to me and I really felt for Osaka having to apologise in her winners speech. Serena should be saying sorry today IMO.

Hmmmn. Days without white nonsense..

in the face of a man who chooses to act out of line with all others in his field, who many other players also have issues with

A man who acts according to the rules, who is always still officiating at the business end of tournaments and has several Grand Slam finals to his name.

She's tough and ranty. So what. But she needs to accept sanctions. That's equality.

I think she was right.

She made her opponent’s win seem of little consequence. It was all about her.

About the only thing I will agree with in some pp criticism of him is that he could have done a little more to pacify Serena with that very first infringement. However from that point on it was all down to Serena how she chose to act. And quite frankly she was a disgrace to the game (as were the crowd who booed the tournament officials).

Poor Naomi. Serena owes a huge huge apology to her. She was beaten fair and square and couldn't even bring herself to admit this in the presentation interviews. Shame on her.

As for the rules.... get rid of on court coaching. Enforce the ban on coaching from the box. And make the enforcement of code violations mandatory. Work for consistency across all umpires, players and events.

Serena Williams’s behavior was disgraceful. She has form for this and ruined Sam Stosur’s victory at the US Open in 2011. Personally I feel she should be banned from the Australian open as 17k is chicken feed to her. She and her coach broke the rules and the umpire did his job. That poor young girl Naomi Osaka, aged 20 (same age as my dd) played fantastically in a dreadfully toxic environment and her achievement was totally overshadowed by Serena. So unprofessional and so sad.

I love her. Even more so that she has come back after having a baby and is very open about the struggles she has. Plus she has a very publicly supportive husband. Her and her husband are doing a massive amount to publicise how very, very hard it can be coming back from maternity leave. She doesn’t have to do that, she could just come back quietly but she is using her fame to call it out. Particularly in the USA where maternity leave etc. is so awful.

I’m no tennis expert but I have really struggled getting back to my career and am very thankful that for once a mother in the public eye is calling out how incredibly difficult and shit it can be trying to come back rather than the ‘having it all’ bulkshit that is usually peddled to us. For that alone I’ll forgive her many things.

Mind you, I was and will forever be a little bit in love with McEnroe and do like a little on-court drama.

She has form for this.

Its not really a surprise.

Just to clarify I don’t think her behaviour in that match and to her opponent was great, but she was having a bad day and is human.

We all have bad days and are human.

But if I used abusive language towards an official at my place of work, and destroyed my equipment in a temper tantrum, I'd expect to be severely reprimanded. And I wouldn't use my innocent child as some sort of shield, nor would I suggest that because some men may not have been reprimanded in vaguely similar circumstances meant that my obnoxious behaviour was somehow OK.

Definitely not great behaviour, but tensions were high, and we are all human after all.
Having seen many equivalent bad boy rants in the past, the umpire’s sanctions do seem unfair, I think I’m with Serena on this one!

just seen more replays. Appalling strop unrelated to gender.

she needs to learn to lose because with an attitude like this added to age it will.happen a lot.

and playing the baby card? Not relevant.

So Serena, in railing against the injustice of receiving a warning for coaching which her coach admits to doing smashes her racket, abuses the umpire and makes the post match interviews and narratives all about the injustice of being penalised. Because sexism.

Meanwhile, Osaka who has also been subjected to racism, who had been training for and focused on her own time on the big stage was sidelined in her own victory. She lost the chance to cry happy tears and thank everyone, to fall down on the court in triumph when the winning shot was hit. She apologised for winning even though she outplayed Serena. The post match narrative is now all about Serena. Serena was once Osaka’s role-model, I’ll bet she’s not anymore.

I hope the Umpire sues the tutu off her.

Serena behaved appallingly. The sexism claim is an attempt to distract from her bad behaviour. She may have a point that sometimes men have not been punished for their outbursts. But it remains that she was totally out of order and ruined what should have been a magical moment for Osaka.

Moknicker well said

She acted very badly and is usong the race and sex cards to try and cover this up.

This umpire is strict follows the rules to the letter does not matter that umpir a b and c are not as strict he was following the rules.

And bull shit about its his fault it esculated SHE BROKE the rules and got rightly penalized or do you think rules should not apply to her since she is a black woman whom recently gave birth....

I think the worst thing aout this incident is how cowardly SW's proven to be. Hiding her cheating behind claims of -isms.

I'd almost respect her if she'd accepted her just punishment like a man.

With Serena all the way. She is a black queen and always a role model for me ( I play tennis but am not competitive)

I will always support her but am disappointed that this has taken away from Osaka’s victory (another ethnic minority tennis queen in the making!)

I think she now really needs help and support to control her temperament and think she ought to apologise to Osaka publicly. I think she will be challenged now and they will bring umpires like this one to her matches to test her. She should really think about how she acts and it’s impact on her legacy which I really hope she does not ruin/tarnish.

The New York Times has a good detailed summary of events here.

Sexism and racism does exist in women's tennis and Serena has had to fight it. This particular event is NOT and example of sexism and racism and simply poor sportsmanship.

YABU - that umpire was sexist, MEN do NOT get treated the same way for the same behaviour. Nor do I think it’s irrelevant that she’s a black woman. Tennis needs to sort out how they treat women.

Osaka is also black.

Serena has always been a spoiled brat. She has won more grand slams and tournaments than I can count. It was Naomi Osaka's first ever win. Surely Serena can remember that feeling? She is a multimillionaire. She has a little girl. She has everything going for her. And she acts like this? Wow. She is as nasty as Maria Sharapova said. Serena doesn't build women up, she tears them down!

What is more sad than Serena's abusive bullying tactics is that Osaka had her moment to shine removed from her, to the extent she had to APOLOGISE for winning, when she had done absolutely nothing wrong. Nothing at all. She won her first slam ever, and Serena has won more than her fair share. Time to give someone else a go.

No, Serena doesn't care about sexism. She only cares for herself and is simply using the sexism angle, when she is a thug and a bully. It makes me sick that people support her. Why not support the underdog? Why not support the player who played respectfully, showed sportsmanship, and did nothing at all wrong? How can we be surprised at thugs and bullies like Serena and others like her making abuse a 'new normal' in the sport when women on here support and encourage and enable her behaviour? It is disgusting anyone on here supports her. Absolutely disgusting and completely wrong and unfair.

John Mac got booted out of Aus open for abuse. Also, as Chris Evert said on telecast. Sure lot's of men-and women- rant and rave. But never on the the third violation. That's the distinction. That's why they didn't get penalised a game. She is falsely playing the gender card, when her behaviour is disgusting and inexcusable. She wasn't penalised a game for arguing with the umpire like men do. She was penalised a game for receiving coaching, then smashing her racket, then arguing with the umpire.
The punishments get worse as you do more of them.

This was absolutely disgusting behaviour from Williams and we all should be condemning it as such. If this came from a male we would not be so tolerant of it. She is extremely entitled and has treated officials terribly in the past. Remember when she physically threatened a lines person for calling a foot fault? She said she would shove a tennis ball down her throat!

In my opinon serena owes alot of people an apology. The umpire for the continuous verbal abuse, she should condemn her fans for booing Naomi Osaka when she won. Finally and most importantly a public apology to her opponent for taking away the joy this girl would have felt and making it all about her. Actually, this behaviour is entirely consistent with Williams' record: while her self belief is one of the things that has made her such great player, it also means she's never coped with losing as gracefully as, say, Roger Federer has. She is as I have said, a thug and a bully, a female version of Kyrios. She drags our sisterhood down, and we should stand up and speak out against her behaviour, not enable it.