No winners: Serena Williams vs. judge in US Open final
NAOMI OSAKA BECAME THE WINNER OF THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE USA on tennis over the weekend. For the twenty-year-old Japanese woman of Haitian origin, this victory was the first in Grand Slam tournaments, thanks to her she immediately rose to seventh place in the ranking of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA).
However, the last final is likely to be remembered not so much because of her game, but because of the controversy of her rival Serena Williams with the referee of the match, Carlos Ramos. In the course of the meeting, he fined the American three times: the tennis player received the first warning for the gestures of her coach, which the judge regarded as prompts, and the next two for aggressive behavior. Serena, in turn, called Ramos a "thief" and accused him of sexism. The big final turned into a big scandal.
Pre-match layouts
Although it was impossible to call Osaka an unequivocal outsider before the finals (six months ago, she won the Indian Wells tournament), bookmakers gave Williams unconditional preference: a factor of 3.5 for her victory against a factor of 10 for Naomi’s victory. In the finals of the “home” championship, Serena played eight times before and lost only twice (once to her older sister Venus). On the side of Williams there were also the sympathies of the audience - and this will also affect the atmosphere in which the final game will take place.
Sign language and translation difficulties
The first set lasted less than half an hour, and Osaka took it without any problems - 6: 2. Soon, in the second game of the second set (with a score of 0-1 in favor of Williams), an episode occurred which no one would have paid attention to: a judge on the tower Carlos Ramos saw that coach Williams Patrick Muratoglu communicated with tennis players with gestures, , guided by the rules, issued her a warning. Serena appealed the decision: “If he shows me a thumb, it inspires me. We don’t have any code with him. I understand that you don’t know this, so I’m telling you about it. It wasn’t a hint.”
Apparently, Williams considered her explanation sufficient. Two games later, she again reminded the judge that she "never cheats." Ramos, with whom Serena, as she admitted after the match, “had no problems” before the current final, agreed, but noted that the coach’s gestures were still unacceptable. The incident seemed to have been exhausted, but two games later everything went wrong.
Voltage escalation
After the lost game, Williams began to lose his nerves. She broke the racket, for which she immediately received a second warning and a penalty of one point (the next game began with a score of 15: 0 in favor of Osaka). The dialogue with Ramos continued in a raised voice: having considered that she received the first warning unfairly, Williams demanded an apology from the judge. "You must declare that this was not. I do not cheat. You have to apologize to me. I have a daughter, and I am always honest. I never broke the rules," said the tennis player.
After losing two more games, Williams again attacked the judge, this time accusing him of theft: “Never in your life will you step on the court where I will be. You are a liar. And you must apologize to me. I must apologize to me. I demand that you apologize. You stole a point from me. You are also a thief. " Ramos regarded it as an insult to his address and issued a third warning, which, according to the rules of the Grand Slam tournaments, transformed into a game lost by Williams - the score was 5: 3 in favor of Osaka. At this point, Ramos and Williams went to separate the supervisor and chief judge of the US Open.
Sexism or principles?
After the match, Serena, part of her colleagues and commentators, insisted that Ramos showed excessive rigidity and unjustified literaryism. Williams herself considered his decision to be sexist, and she managed to say more on the court: "Do you know how many men make things much worse? A lot of men say different things, but nothing happens to them because they are men." The former first racket Victoria Azarenka partly agrees with her: “If this were a man’s match, this wouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have happened.” Female tennis legend Billie Jean King also lamented double standards: "If a woman gives vent to emotions, she is called a hysterical woman and punished. If a man does the same, she is called direct, and nothing happens."
William James James Blake, a retired compatriot, noted that at the time he told arbitrators things that were more offensive - and he got away with it: “Once I got off with a“ mild warning ”: the judge told me to stop or he would give me this warning. [Ramos] should have shown even such generosity. It is a pity that such a final was spoiled. "
However, it was Carlos Ramos, an experienced judge on the tower with more than twenty years of experience, he did not deserve accusations of inconsistency, much less sexist prejudice. He is known for his principled harshness and likewise does not tolerate attacks by male tennis players: Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Nick Kyrios received disciplinary punishments from him in different years. He also penalizes players for tips from coaches not for the first time.
Spoiled victory
Perhaps the saddest result of the Williams-Ramos confrontation was that by the time the second set was 5: 3, the atmosphere on the court had been completely destroyed. The spectators booed Osaka, finding that the referee was judging her. Serena tried to reassure the audience, and after the match she congratulated the winner, but there was no talk of any celebration. The final, which was supposed to be a triumph for a rising tennis star, - instead at the awards ceremony, Osaka asked for forgiveness through tears for the fact that the match had developed that way.
Answering the question whether her attitude to Williams changed after this game, Naomi said: "I will always remember that Serena, whom I love. For me it doesn’t change anything. At the reward she treated me kindly." Williams herself after the game received a total fine in the amount of seventeen thousand dollars (a little more than the ten and a half thousand she was fined in 2009 — then she threatened to shove the ball down the line). But the main loser in the US Open final is definitely not her.
Cover: Nike
