Not so Serene Serena

[Stavros]

On the one hand I agree with a point made in the New York Times, that it was the right argument at the wrong time.

On the other hand, and this is what I think provokes such shameful reactions, Serena is not a meek, demure little girl but an adult who, yes, has a temper and lost her self-control on court, but had a powerful set of arguments to support her complaint that she was badly treated and that the implication that she cheated is disgraceful and without foundation.

To begin with, she did not see the 'coaching' the Umpire for which she received her first penalty, whereas everyone watching in a men's game saw the Umpire in that match step down from his seat to coach Nick Kyrgios, a ridiculous state of affairs if ever there was one. Secondly plenty of players have 'had words' with umpires that did not result in fines, many if not most of them men, and thirdly the Umpire Carlos Ramos has form having penalized Venus Williams in another tournament. I can't prove it, but I think he has a personal grievance with the sisters. If it is about the application of the rules, players have a right to demand consistency across the game, and not to discover that the rules change when the umpire changes.

Just as women have the right to equality in the sport. They put in as much in terms of physical fitness and training as the men. And plenty of 3 set matches between the top 5 players and the rest are tedious knockabouts which fill a tournament schedule.

That Serena has been so viciously attacked and racially abused is par for the course, as the Williams sisterrs have been the subject of abuse since they started. What they don't like is that Serena fights back, that she is Black, Proud and Loud -and has a case the tennis authorities must answer. The latest smear, which comes from the Rupert Murdoch stable of hate in Australia, is a cartoon that drags the world back to the days when slaves knew their place, and nice girls did not play tennis. And note how 'white' Naomi Osaka is in the cartoon.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/11/the-serena-williams-cartoon-exposes-australias-ignorance-on-race

One also wonders about the management of the US Open, when Nadal began a tennis match at 10pm in the evening (it finished at 2am). 10 pm? Why not 7 am?

[blackchubby38]

Carlos Ramos doesn't have any personal grievances with the Williams sisters. He has penalized some of the biggest male stars in tennis. Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray have all had issues with him in the past. I think he is either one of those officials who is just a sticker for the rules or who likes to make it about himself.

Serena Williams is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. The racism and sexism that both her and her sister have encountered over the years is well documented. Serena had a great run coming back from the blood clots that endangered her life.

But Serena also has a history of being a sore loser and verbally abusive towards officials.

While gender equality is a worthy cause to fight for, Saturday night was the not place for it and the events didn't warrant it. In my view, Serena embarrassed herself and ruined what should have been a memorable moment for Naomi Osaka.

What was even more embarrassing was the members of the media applauding what Serena said during the post match press conference.

[filghy2]

Carlos Ramos doesn't have any personal grievances with the Williams sisters. He has penalized some of the biggest male stars in tennis. Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray have all had issues with him in the past. I think he is either one of those officials who is just a sticker for the rules or who likes to make it about himself.


I don't think any of those were penalised a game for their dissent though. Even if the umpire was technically correct and Serena overreacted, I think the issue is that a debatable call had an excessive influence on the game. It's telling that most players and ex-players who have commented have been critical of the umpire.

Why does tennis have a rule against coaching anyway? It's allowed in other sports and hardly seems like an unfair advantage. The rule seems a bit of an anachronism, which is probably why most umpires don't enforce it strictly.

[Stavros]

With regard to the two posts above, I think the core issue is the lack of consistency in the judgements made by the umpires. It is not just a matter of rules if one player is penalized for smashing their racquet but another is not, the umpire is obliged in both cases to issue a warning. As for coaching, yes, the rules should be changed, but it looks bad when one umpire penalizes a player for coaching she knew nothing about when another umpire does the coaching himself.

As for Serena, she lost the final at Wimbledon this year and I don't recall her being a sore loser. I agree she lost it in New York and it was a great shame for the winner, but that does not mean she did not have just cause to complain.

[blackchubby38]

I don't think any of those were penalised a game for their dissent though. Even if the umpire was technically correct and Serena overreacted, I think the issue is that a debatable call had an excessive influence on the game. It's telling that most players and ex-players who have commented have been critical of the umpire.

Why does tennis have a rule against coaching anyway? It's allowed in other sports and hardly seems like an unfair advantage. The rule seems a bit of an anachronism, which is probably why most umpires don't enforce it strictly.

But the penalty for dissent came after the other two penalties. The coaching violation and the breaking of the racquet. I also don't think the debate call had an excessive influence on the game. Serena was most likely going to lose that match without any of that happening.

As for a tennis having a rule against coaching. No one seems to have a definitive answer on that. The only one that I have heard is that the wealth disparity between players on the tour. A top ranked player could afford to fly out their coach to every event, where a lower ranked one wouldn't be able to.

To give you an idea what I kind of official Ramos is, this quote from an interview he gave to a Portugal newspaper sums him up perfectly:

"I'm fine, given the circumstances," Ramos said, according to the newspaper. "It's a delicate situation, but umpiring 'a la carte' doesn't exist. Don't worry about me."

[Stavros]

"I'm fine, given the circumstances," Ramos said, according to the newspaper. "It's a delicate situation, but umpiring 'a la carte' doesn't exist. Don't worry about me."

But this is precisely the problem: that the umpiring in the US and indeed other Grand Slam tournaments is indeed à la carte. I don't know if a tournament official can over-rule an umpire's decision, but it is clearly wrong for one umpire to penalize a player for a code violation when another does not and this means the tournament officials are failing if they do not insist that umpires either apply the letter of the law or choose to be flexible, because this can appear to be discrimination when one player gets a penalty another does not. And if the rules are to be applied 'with flexibility' how can a player be sure that fair play will be the deciding factor? Many years ago one umpire appeared deliberately to mis-pronounce Martina's name as Ratnatilova, it just didn't seem an innocent mistake and was no amusing either.

Now we have the even more disgraceful possibility that Serena Williams will in effect be boycotted by umpires:

Stung by what they perceive as a lack of institutional support for the chair umpire who gave Serena Williams a game penalty late in the U.S. Open women’s final, which set off a firestorm of criticism, other umpires are reportedly discussing the possibility of boycotting her matches.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2018/09/12/tennis-umpires-reportedly-considering-boycott-of-serena-williams-matches/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.76320088e9bc

It is scandalous that having exhibited their own contradictions in applying the rules, the umpires should turn on Serena in this way. Would they have done the same to John McEnroe when he was abusing them in the 1980s?

And, if there are to be boycotts, maybe the top ten men and women players should boycott the Australian Open unless and until that shit-eating pornographer and Presidential buddy Rupert Murdoch apologises for the filthy, racist cartoon that appeared, not once, but twice in his ragged Melbourne 'newspaper' the Herald Sun.

Serena's bad behaviour is exposing to view some rather more bad and disturbing ideas that sport can do without. And all that is needed is a sensible approach to the application of the rules, as in any sport.

[broncofan]

I've been watching tennis most of my life but here is one issue I have with Ramos' decision. He says umpires don't issue decisions a la carte and it is possible that none of his decisions were wrong as individual decisions, but umpires often are lenient when it's an important match. They often won't penalize someone for the third time because they're reluctant to alter the outcome. It is rare to issue a warning for coaching, as it's something that from time to time happens as players look over at their box. Agassi used to look at Gilbert and whine and it's tough to distinguish moral support from coaching sometimes.

What Stavros is saying about the arbitrariness of the application of the rules is true. Some have been penalized for less than what Serena did, but many many men have avoided penalty for things that are worse. I think it was badly handled by Ramos, who decided he wanted to be a stickler when it wasn't absolutely necessary. Someone who has been accused of cheating will tend to be emotional.

Having said all that, while I agree that Serena has dealt with racism in her career (see Indian Wells), and sexism as well, and while I think women get held to a higher standard than men, I'm not convinced it wasn't just tone-deaf bad officiating. I'm just saying it's hard to know, because Serena did react badly, but the umpire should have simply given her a caution after the thief comment to try to calm her down.

As for coaching, I've heard a lot of people say they think coaching should just be allowed since the rule is not enforced well. Having played a lot of competitive tennis, I kind of like the idea that you have to figure things out for yourself on the court. But it does lead to enforcement issues.

I agree that the Herald Sun cartoon was racist and disgusting. No excuse at all for that. Venomously ugly.

[broncofan]

Now we have the even more disgraceful possibility that Serena Williams will in effect be boycotted by umpires:

Stung by what they perceive as a lack of institutional support for the chair umpire who gave Serena Williams a game penalty late in the U.S. Open women’s final, which set off a firestorm of criticism, other umpires are reportedly discussing the possibility of boycotting her matches.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2018/09/12/tennis-umpires-reportedly-considering-boycott-of-serena-williams-matches/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.76320088e9bc

It is scandalous that having exhibited their own contradictions in applying the rules, the umpires should turn on Serena in this way. Would they have done the same to John McEnroe when he was abusing them in the 1980s
I went to a McEnroe match towards the end of his career in the early 90s. It was like being held hostage by a madman. There was a sort of blackmail in his behavior that if he didn't win he was going to make it ugly as hell.

Just as an anecdote, in the early 90s I was watching a match between Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge in singles. They were usually doubles partners but maybe that fact made their singles match more competitive bc neither wanted to be thought of as the lesser partner. At one point in a competitive match Todd Woodbridge slammed his racket against the back wall of the court and yelled "you suck dog balls you faggot". I believe he was chastising himself but it was definitely loud enough for the linesmen to hear if not the chair umpire. He received exactly zero warnings or penalties. But while Serena did not have her best moment here, it's a joke to compare her to some of these figures.

[Stavros]

I think we all agree that consistency in umpiring is crucial if the rules are to be seen to be applied fairly to whoever is on court. In the case of Serena Williams, there is the additional curiosity that she has been drug tested four times more than any other female player, twice in one week on one occasion. I was browsing through the mostly offensive comments to Allison Pearson's article on Williams in the Telegraph (the article is hidden behind a paywall but the comments can be viewed), and wondered if there was an issue with Williams and drug testing, which led me to these articles.

It is simply too odd statistically that one player out of the top 10 US female players would be drug tested so many times in comparison with the others, some of whom have not been tested at all.

The articles are here-
https://deadspin.com/an-anti-doping-agent-occupied-serena-williams-s-propert-1826993294

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/serena-williams-doping-tests-more-often-than-other-top-players-cites-discrimination/

[blackchubby38]

Report: Men penalized significantly more than women in tennis

Following her controversial loss at the U.S. Open last week, Serena Williams has sparked a conversation about equality in tennis.

Williams was fined $17,000 for three code violations in the final match. The chair official first penalized Williams for illegal on-court coaching, which she denied and said she did not see. She then picked up a penalty for smashing her racket, and then a third after calling the official a thief after she believed she was unfairly penalized.

Williams pleaded her case to other officials who were called to the court, and called out what she sees as a double-standard in the sport — saying that male tennis players never face harsh penalties like hers for similar actions.

However, in the four Grand Slam events over the past 20 years, men have been penalized significantly more often than women, according to a New York Times report on Friday.

The report, looking at fines data at Grand Slam events from 1998 to 2018, found that women were fined 535 times, while men were fined 1,517 times.

Women only outnumbered men in two categories over the past two decades — racking up 152 fines for coaching, compared to just 87 for men, and 10 no press fines, compared to just six for men.

Here are some of the biggest fines, from the New York Times:

Racket Abuse — Men 646, Women 99
Audible Obscenity — Men 344, Women 140
Unsportsmanlike Conduct — Men 287, Women 67
Verbal Abuse — Men 62, Women 16
Ball Abuse — Men 49, Women 35
Visible Obscenity — Men 20, Women 11

The biggest fine in which women were fined for more than men, coaching, is the one that Williams picked up her first penalty for during her loss to Naomi Osaka — which sparked the other two penalties.

Courtesy Yahoo Sports.

[broncofan]

Men are also penalized for murder more often than women and it doesn't imply they're treated more harshly.

The question is not who is penalized more but who is penalized more per infraction. I can guarantee you men break a lot more racquets and hit a lot more balls out of the court. I can't believe anyone would even write up this statistic without considering that it doesn't take into account the primary issue, which is how many penalties they receive given their conduct. It would require comparing the outcomes above to an objective standard which is sometimes not held.

I'm sure Trump supporting cleats50 who is downvoting every post that implies maybe the umpire did not have to deduct a game from Serena will like this but it doesn't even address the main issue.

[broncofan]

Report: Men penalized significantly more than women in tennis

Following her controversial loss at the U.S. Open last week, Serena Williams has sparked a conversation about equality in tennis.

Williams was fined $17,000 for three code violations in the final match. The chair official first penalized Williams for illegal on-court coaching, which she denied and said she did not see. She then picked up a penalty for smashing her racket, and then a third after calling the official a thief after she believed she was unfairly penalized.

Williams pleaded her case to other officials who were called to the court, and called out what she sees as a double-standard in the sport — saying that male tennis players never face harsh penalties like hers for similar actions.

However, in the four Grand Slam events over the past 20 years, men have been penalized significantly more often than women, according to a New York Times report on Friday.

The report, looking at fines data at Grand Slam events from 1998 to 2018, found that women were fined 535 times, while men were fined 1,517 times.

Women only outnumbered men in two categories over the past two decades — racking up 152 fines for coaching, compared to just 87 for men, and 10 no press fines, compared to just six for men.

Here are some of the biggest fines, from the New York Times:

Racket Abuse — Men 646, Women 99
Audible Obscenity — Men 344, Women 140
Unsportsmanlike Conduct — Men 287, Women 67
Verbal Abuse — Men 62, Women 16
Ball Abuse — Men 49, Women 35
Visible Obscenity — Men 20, Women 11

The biggest fine in which women were fined for more than men, coaching, is the one that Williams picked up her first penalty for during her loss to Naomi Osaka — which sparked the other two penalties.

Courtesy Yahoo Sports.

Men are also penalized for murder more often than women and it doesn't imply they're treated more harshly.

The question is not who is penalized more but who is penalized more per infraction. I can guarantee you men break a lot more racquets and hit a lot more balls out of the court. I can't believe anyone would even write up this statistic without considering that it doesn't take into account the primary issue, which is how many penalties they receive given their conduct. It would require comparing the outcomes above to an objective standard.

I'm sure Trump supporting cleats50 who is downvoting every post that implies maybe the umpire did not have to deduct a game from Serena will like this but it doesn't even address the main issue.

[broncofan]

For instance, when Roger Federer, the multi-year sportsmanship award winner, says the word shit to the umpire during a changeover and doesn't get penalized we take that into account. We could have a ratio of penalties to (penalties plus unpenalized infractions). You could also consider penalties that were given but not warranted even under a strict interpretation and consider it separately. But the above numbers say nothing bc men engage in much more obvious abuses than women and more often.

[blackchubby38]

For instance, when Roger Federer, the multi-year sportsmanship award winner, says the word shit to the umpire during a changeover and doesn't get penalized we take that into account. We could have a ratio of penalties to (penalties plus unpenalized infractions). You could also consider penalties that were given but not warranted even under a strict interpretation and consider it separately. But the above numbers say nothing bc men engage in much more obvious abuses than women and more often.

If Federer just says the word "shit", wouldn't that fall under the category of "Visible Obscenity" and not "Verbal Abuse"?

[broncofan]

If Federer just says the word "shit", wouldn't that fall under the category of "Visible Obscenity" and not "Verbal Abuse"?
Yeah I'm pretty sure it's audible obscenity, which when I looked at the rules includes any word commonly recognized as profanity. Verbal abuse is what Serena did by accusing the ump of being a thief.

[Stavros]

Report: Men penalized significantly more than women in tennis


This is not the key point, which is not only the lack of consistent decision making by umpires faced with code violations,but that Carlos Ramos, who we are told is a strict enforcer of the rules does not apply them constently in the games he chairs.

Ramos has also been accused of inconsistencies. At this year’s Wimbledon quarter-final between Novak Djokovic (https://www.irishtimes.com/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Novak+Djokovic) and Kei Nishikori (https://www.irishtimes.com/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Kei+Nishikori) both players threw their rackets to the ground in frustration. However, only Djokovic was issued a warning and directed a comment at the umpire during the game: “Double standards, my friend, double standards,” he told Ramos.
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/it-s-not-just-serena-how-umpire-carlos-ramos-has-clashed-with-players-1.3623344

[Stavros]

I see that Serena is the target of white male abuse again. I can't think of another player, male or female, who is on the receiving end of such abuse. I find it sad that men are even saying these things in 2021, but I guess the fact of life is that there are some men who will always assume their views are not controversial or offensive, when they are. I don't hear people saying Federer shoud quit because he has two ageing parents and two sets of twins to look after, or that Djokovic should be banned because of his suspect politics.

"Tiriac was speaking on a Romanian television show when asked if he had doubts before Simona Halep’s 2019 Wimbledon final. He responded by referring to Williams, Halep’s opponent, as a “monster”. “At this age and the weight she is now, she does not move as easily as she did 15 years ago,” he said. “Serena was a sensational player. If she had a little decency, she would retire.”
"Tiriac has directed similar comments towards Williams numerous times. It reflects what Williams has had to deal with throughout her career. Even when there is no reason for her name to cross any lips, at some point she will always have to deal with racist and/or sexist comments from people in positions of prominence within her own sport.
It is worth recalling some of the incidents. Two years ago, in the early months of her return from maternity leave, Tiriac decided to shame her weight: “With all due respect, she is 36 years old and 90 kilograms,” he said to the German magazine Sport Bild. “I would like to see something else, I would like to see a player like Steffi Graf.” In 2017, shortly after Williams announced her pregnancy, Tiriac’s good friend and countryman Illie Nastase, Romania’s Fed Cup captain, commented on Williams’s unborn child during the tie against Great Britain. “Let’s see what colour it has (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/apr/21/ilie-nastase-faces-censure-racist-comments-serena-williams-tennis). Chocolate with milk?” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2021/jan/09/serena-williams-ion-tiriac-misogyny-racism

[Budweiser]

:grin:

1350536

[Stavros]

:grin:



I have seen this cartoon somewhere before, and it has never made me smile. I wonder why.

[Budweiser]

I had to simply use the smile emoji because I could not find a ROTFLMFAO type of emoji. LOL!

[Stavros]

"The Power of the Dog filmmaker Jane Campion (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/jane-campion) has been criticised for a remark about Venus and Serena Williams (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/serena-williams) during her speech at the 2022 Critics Choice Awards (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/critics-choice-awards).
Campion was accepting the award for Best Director when she made a reference to the tennis legends, who were in attendance due to their involvement in King Richard (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/king-richard), the Will Smith-starring biopic about their father, Richard Williams.
"Venus and Serena, you’re such marvels,” said Campion. “However, you don’t play against the guys, like I have to." "
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/jane-campion-under-fire-unnecessary-100111135.html


So Jane Campion has never heard of 'Mixed Doubles' in Tennis?

Or she just couldn't resist making a silly comment at two women so much more successful than she? Pathetic.