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2018 US Open tennis

spystud13

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HouTex

HouTex 1912

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I have to say, I hate how slow the U.S. Open courts have become. They've severely hindered players who aren't defensive counterpunchers.

It keeps Nadal competitive on the surface as well and he is a huge draw for tennis. Wimbledon has also been slowed down which allowed Nadal to win there. I can't stand him though.
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PittsburghTiger

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https://nypost.com/2018/09/08/its-shameful-what-us-open-did-to-naomi-osaka/

Naomi Osaka, 20 years old, just became the first player from Japan to win a Grand Slam.

Yet rather than cheer Osaka, the crowd, the commentators and US Open officials all expressed shock and grief that Serena Williams lost.

Osaka spent what should have been her victory lap in tears. It had been her childhood dream to make it to the US Open and possibly play against Williams, her idol, in the final.

It’s hard to recall a more unsportsmanlike event.

Here was a young girl who pulled off one of the greatest upsets ever, who fought for every point she earned, ashamed.

At the awards ceremony, Osaka covered her face with her black visor and cried. The crowd booed her. Katrina Adams, chairman and president of the USTA, opened the awards ceremony by denigrating the winner and lionizing Williams — whose ego, if anything, needs piercing.

“Perhaps it’s not the finish we were looking for today,” Adams said, “but Serena, you are a champion of all champions.” Addressing the crowd, Adams added, “This mama is a role model and respected by all.” (what the fuck! that's awful)

That’s not likely the case now, not after the world watched as Serena Williams had a series of epic meltdowns on the court, all sparked when the umpire warned her: No coaching from the side. Her coach was making visible hand signals.

“I don’t cheat to win,” Williams told him. “I’d rather lose.”

 

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PittsburghTiger

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David A. Love is a writer and commentator based in Philadelphia. He contributes to a number of publications, including Atlanta Black Star, WHYY and Al Jazeera. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidALove. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. View more opinion articles on CNN.

 

(CNN) - The unfair treatment displayed toward Serena Williams at the US Open is further proof that, in tennis, women are subjected to a double standard. That standard is particularly glaring in the case of female athletes of color. 

Only days after the announcement that Colin Kaepernick is the face of Nike's "Just Do It" 30th anniversary campaign, Williams, a black tennis star, was punished for displaying justifiable anger when she called out the umpire for his on-the-court-sexism. She was then penalized with a $17,000 fine, $10,000 of it for her remarks to the umpire.
David A. Love
 
David A. Love
The match should have been a cause for celebration, coming over 60 years since Althea Gibson became thefirst African-American player to compete in the US Nationals and win the US Open, Wimbledon and the French Open. Gibson faced racism as a trailblazing black woman, with hecklers at her first tennis match in Forest Hills on August 29, 1950, shouting "Beat the n-----!" 
 
Fast forward to 2018 and Williams was matched against Naomi Osaka, a Japanese and Haitian American player who, like Serena and Venus, is part of a tennis powerhouse family with her sister Mari. That Naomi had the chance to play against her idol was overshadowed by the racist and sexist officiating of the tennis tournament. 
 
At Saturday's match, umpire Carlos Ramos issued Williams a warning for allegedly receiving illegal coaching through hand gestures. Though her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, admitted to coaching, Williams denied she had cheated and demanded Ramos apologize. Then Williams broke her racket out of frustration over losing a serve, for which Ramos imposed a one-point penalty. Williams responded by calling Ramos a "thief" for stealing a point from her.
 
Social media weighs in on Serena's loss
 
 
 
Williams lost the match to Osaka and took the defeat with grace, but not without making a statement. At a press conference, Williams said she is fighting for women's rights and women's equality, calling out Ramos for his sexism. "He's never taken a game from a man because they said 'thief.' For me, it blows my mind. But I'm going to continue to fight for women," Williams said. 
 
Other players have notably found fault with Ramos. In 2016, he even accused Williams' older sister, Venus, of receiving coaching during a match. 
 
(Some in tennis have defended Ramos and say he has been tough on male as well as female players.)
 
Williams, who returned to tennis after childbirth, has faced an uphill battle in recent weeks. More specifically, she has been policed for her blackness. She has faced unfair drug testing and disgusting comments about her body. And she has been banned from wearing her Wakanda-esque black catsuit at the French Open -- which was designed to reduce her risk of blood clotting, the very issue that almost claimed her life during childbirth.
Now, perhaps the greatest tennis player in the world pays a $17,000 price for her anger. Why? Because to many, including likely the tennis authorities that be, Williams' reaction affirms the racial stereotype of a black woman who dares to speak her mind -- loudmouthed, uncouth and dare we say "ghetto."
 
Of course, sports history is replete with men who have shown rage on the court, and not only avoided punishment but received accolades. The antics, outbursts and temper tantrums of John McEnroe,Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors are just a few examples. And male tennis players, such as James Blake, have admitted to saying worse than Williams did -- without suffering penalties. As Billie Jean King tweeted, "When a woman is emotional, she's 'hysterical' and she's penalized for it. When a man does the same, he's 'outspoken' & and there are no repercussions." 
 
This double standard is nothing new, but it is receiving more attention in the #MeToo era. The repercussions go far beyond the tennis world. As Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, asked Judge Brett Kavanaugh at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in a discussion on Roe v. Wade, "Can you think of any laws that give the government power to make decisions about the male body?"
 
The penalty against Serena Williams is evidence that black women still face an uphill battle, and we have a lot of work left to do if we are to be a society of equals.

 

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Knoxtnhorn

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Ahhhh.  The "woman" card wasn't getting it done so let's pull the race card.  I love how the CNN guy brings up the 50's (most of us weren't alive), the banning of the cat suit (that's France), and the chair ump (he's Portugese) to make a case that Serena's sorry behavior was big, ole bad racism at work.  +rep for working Kavanaugh into the article.

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PittsburghTiger

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8 minutes ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

Ahhhh.  The "woman" card wasn't getting it done so let's pull the race card.  I love how the CNN guy brings up the 50's (most of us weren't alive), the banning of the cat suit (that's France), and the chair ump (he's Portugese) to make a case that Serena's sorry behavior was big, ole bad racism at work.  +rep for working Kavanaugh into the article.

I say even better rep that he worked in the paradise of Wakanda

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Aleemay

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I'm just laughing at the whole banning catsuit is racist thing? Stupid people can never bother to do research. Anne White had her similar outfit banned back in 1985 Wimbledon.

Also Williams really doesn't need the outfit to prevent blood clots, she's running around, sprinting side to side. That is more than enough in preventing clots.

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Cheeseweasel

Cheeseweasel 26439

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1 hour ago, Aleemay said:

I'm just laughing at the whole banning catsuit is racist thing? Stupid people can never bother to do research. Anne White had her similar outfit banned back in 1985 Wimbledon.

Also Williams really doesn't need the outfit to prevent blood clots, she's running around, sprinting side to side. That is more than enough in preventing clots.

I'm more offended by her yelling every time she hits the ball. It's a strategy to intimidate your opponent. And it's stupid.

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LonghornGoodfella

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4 minutes ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

I lost respect for her years ago when I noticed she NEVER, EVER gives credit to her opponents after a loss.  It's always, "I played bad" or, "I was sick" or, "injured".

This right here. Why i've never liked her. And i think it's still sad that 99% of the talk is still about Serena's bullshit act than giving props to Naomi. 

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WBT

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7 hours ago, PittsburghTiger said:
 
Of course, sports history is replete with men who have shown rage on the court, and not only avoided punishment but received accolades. The antics, outbursts and temper tantrums of John McEnroe,Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors are just a few examples.
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The record of John McEnroe's altercations with tennis authorities since he broke into the international circuit in 1977.

June 1977 - Screamed obscenities at French Open line judge while winning mixed doubles final with Mary Carillo, but was not fined.July 1980 - Earned first major warning at Wimbledon for behavior during semifinal against Jimmy Connors.

July 1981 - Fined a total of $6,000 at Wimbledon when he called chair umpire "pits of the world" and told him, "You cannot be serious!" Referee Fred Hoyles said he had come within two tantrums of disqualification during early match against Tom Gulliksen. Defeated Bjorn Borg in a four-set final, but boycotted champions dinner, resulting in another fine. Recommended additional fine of $10,000 overturned on appeal.

May 1983 - Fined $1,000 for calling Czech opponent Tomas Smid a "communist bastard" at Forest Hills event.

June 1983 - Fined $3,500 for clashing with photographer at courtside during French Open.

July 1983 - Fined $325 for swearing at spectator during Wimbledon. Fines during the year totalled $7,500.

May 1984 - Fined $7,500 for misconduct during Stockholm Open.

June 1984 - Accrued fines totalling $3,500 for swearing at linesman and other verbal abuse during match against Connors at French Open.

January 1985 - Dropped from U.S. Davis Cup team after "outrageous behavior" during 1984 final defeat by Sweden.

June 1985 - Loses honorary membership of London's Queen's Club for abusing chairman's wife while practicing. McEnroe later was reinstated.

December 1985 - Fined $3,500 for three separate offenses at Australian Open, culminating with verbal abuse of opponent Slobodan Zivojinovic.

January 1986 - Beaten by Brad Gilbert at Masters finals in New York and fined $1,000 for arguing with spectators.

September 1986 - Received fines totalling $3,500 at U.S. Open after he and partner Peter Fleming were disqualified for arriving late for men's doubles match. Fine broke down to $750 for being late and $2,750 for saying what he thought about the disqualification.

April 1987 - Fined $2,000 for time-wasting during match at WCT event in Dallas.

May 1987 - Fined $4,000 for walking off court during World Cup in Dusseldorf.

September 1987 - Suspended two months and fined $10,000 for various offenses at U.S. Open.

July 1988 - Warned for racket abuse during defeat against Australian Wally Masur at Wimbledon.

July 1989 - Australian John Fitzgerald, a fourth-round loser to McEnroe, accuses him of using tantrums to put off opponents.

January 1990 - Thrown out of Australian Open and fined $6,500 after receiving third warning for misbehavior against Mikael Pernfors.

April 1991 - McEnroe admits own behavior on court "sickens me" after receiving a code violation and point penalty during defeat by fellow American Todd Witsken in Hong Kong.

July 1991 - Fined $10,000 for swearing at linesman in Wimbledon loss against Stefan Edberg, picked up by television microphone.

Total fines - $69,500.

Quote

Controversy was never far from McEnroe, however; in his fourth-round match against Mikael Pernfors at the 1990 Australian Open, McEnroe was ejected from the tournament for swearing at the umpire, supervisor, and referee.[14] He was warned by the umpire for intimidating a lineswoman, and then docked a point for smashing a racket. McEnroe was apparently unaware that a new Code of Conduct, which had been introduced just before the tournament, meant that a third code violation would not lead to the deduction of a game but instead would result in immediate disqualification; therefore, when McEnroe unleashed a volley of abuse at umpire Gerry Armstrong, he was defaulted. He was also fined $6,500 for the incidents.[24][25][26]

 

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SpiralOut

SpiralOut 1954

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4 hours ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

I lost respect for her years ago when I noticed she NEVER, EVER gives credit to her opponents after a loss.  It's always, "I played bad" or, "I was sick" or, "injured".

Yup.  And let's not forget she has a history of acting like this at these events.  Of course, since she's Serena, she only ever gets a slap on the wrist and the media jumps to her defense.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213164/Furious-Serena-Williams-dumped-U-S-Open-told-official-If-I-Id-ball-shove-throat.html

Just all around stupidity on her part.  That judge is known to be a stickler for the rules.  So play by the rules.  Your coach admits to trying to give you help during the match and instead of just letting it go you act all self-righteous and go on a tirade.  Then you break your racket.  Then you start calling the judge a thief and continue to make a scene. 

 

 

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LonghornGoodfella

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Since this topic isn't going away anytime soon, her fucking coach admitted he was coaching. Also this same ref has popped Djokovic and Murray with violations pretty recently in slams, so as soon as she brought the unfair treatment for men vs. women, which was right away, she had no legs to stand on. Stupid drama queen who was getting her ass kicked and wanted to take attention away from that fact. 

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Nemesis

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If all Serena had done was to call the judge a thief, I could see the point of those who said the third warning may have been unwarranted. But she also threatened to make sure he never worked another match with her in it again, which was pretty much threatening to end his career. U.S. Open judges make $250 a day and the high end professional judges make maybe $50k a year working the tour. Nobody likes it when a multimillionaire publicly humiliates a regular person who is just doing their job. 

And for the race and sex card. Do we really need to point out that Serena's opponent was a woman as well? And that she was Japanese/Haitian? And that the judge was not American? But don't let the facts spoil the narrative, I guess. 

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pops

pops 7121

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1 hour ago, Nemesis said:

If all Serena had done was to call the judge a thief, I could see the point of those who said the third warning may have been unwarranted. But she also threatened to make sure he never worked another match with her in it again, which was pretty much threatening to end his career. U.S. Open judges make $250 a day and the high end professional judges make maybe $50k a year working the tour. Nobody likes it when a multimillionaire publicly humiliates a regular person who is just doing their job. 

And for the race and sex card. Do we really need to point out that Serena's opponent was a woman as well? And that she was Japanese/Haitian? And that the judge was not American? But don't let the facts spoil the narrative, I guess. 

Don't let facts get in the way of being woke

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PittsburghTiger

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On Saturday, many tennis fans witnessed an emotional, gut-wrenching conclusion to the U.S. Open. They also witnessed exactly what women of color lifting each other up looks like—even during personal devastation.

In this case, 20-year-old Naomi Osaka, who was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and Haitian father, won her first ever Grand Slam title by defeating her tennis idol, Serena Williams. But the mood in the wake of the game was hardly celebratory.

For many, the joy for Osaka’s hard-won victory was soured by the way Williams was treated during the match. During the second set, the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, gave Williams a game penalty after he said that she had accrued three violations: receiving coaching, smashing a racket in frustration, and then verbally abusing the umpire after the initial penalties.

Williams refuted two of the three penalties, growing angry at the notion that the umpire thought she was cheating by receiving advice from her coach. “I don’t cheat to win, I’d rather lose,” she said. As she tried to defend herself against the umpire’s call of verbal abuse minutes later, after she called him a “thief,” she was heard saying: “There are a lot of men out here who have said a lot of things and do not get that punishment. Because I am a woman you are going to take this away from me? That is not right.”

The crowd loudly booed U.S. Open officials after the match, leaving Osaka in tears as she stood on the podium, awaiting her trophy. When given the mic, Williams used her platform not to trash talk the umpire or the U.S. Open, or lament her loss, but to ask the crowd to stop booing and instead use the moment to celebrate Osaka’s victory. “Let’s make this the best moment we can and we’ll get through it,” she said. “Let’s give everyone the credit where credit’s due.”

For her part, Osaka spent much of her victory lap thanking her parents and praising Williams, saying that it was an honor and dream to play her in such a high-stakes game. In a post-match interview, Williams said that during the trophy ceremony she looked at Osaka, and thought, “I definitely don’t want her to feel like that.”

The U.S. Open final is the latest in a series of recent moments that have left fans of women’s tennis outraged. Just last week at the U.S. Open, Alize Cornet was penalized for briefly taking her shirt off in order to turn it around, after realizing that it was backwards. Many tennis fans ridiculed the call, noting that male tennis players take their shirts off frequently without getting in trouble.

And only a few weeks ago, the French Open said it would introduce a dress code that would ban outfits like the catsuit worn by Williams during the French Open—a suit she wears to prevent blood clots, after a pulmonary embolism in 2011 left her “on her death bed,” Williams said at the time.

“It will no longer be accepted,” the French Tennis Federation President Bernard Giudicelli said. “One must respect the game and the place.”

Taking a game away from Williams for using the word “thief” during such a high-stakes match is unlikely to do much to quash the notion  that a double standard exists between men and women in today’s competitive tennis field. And the stakes of that double standard can feel even higher for women of color. The support for Williams on Saturday—and throughout her career—comes not just from appreciation for her rare talent, but in part because some fans have an enduring memory of how difficult it is for women of color to make it in expensive, mostly white sports.

To see Williams’s comeback after a traumatic birth stymied over seemingly minor infractions seems unnecessary and malicious. To see the devastation that those penalties wrought on two women of color at the top of their sport, during what should have been a joyous time, is heartbreaking.

During a post-game interview Williams was undeterred: “I’m here to fight for women’s rights and women’s equality,” she said. “The fact that I have to go through this is an example. Maybe it didn’t work out for me, but it’s going to work out for the next person.”

Superstar athletes are rarely as generous, or as classy, or as outright talented as Serena Williams was on Saturday. The events of the U.S. Open show both how difficult it can be for women of color to be accepted as they are, and just how thoroughly she has rejected the status quo. Being the best may not be enough to take home the Grand Slam trophy, but Williams is winning at something much more consequential.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/09/a-heart-breaking-grand-slam/569704/

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Aleemay

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3 minutes ago, PittsburghTiger said:

On Saturday, many tennis fans witnessed an emotional, gut-wrenching conclusion to the U.S. Open. They also witnessed exactly what women of color lifting each other up looks like—even during personal devastation.

In this case, 20-year-old Naomi Osaka, who was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and Haitian father, won her first ever Grand Slam title by defeating her tennis idol, Serena Williams. But the mood in the wake of the game was hardly celebratory.

For many, the joy for Osaka’s hard-won victory was soured by the way Williams was treated during the match. During the second set, the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, gave Williams a game penalty after he said that she had accrued three violations: receiving coaching, smashing a racket in frustration, and then verbally abusing the umpire after the initial penalties.

Williams refuted two of the three penalties, growing angry at the notion that the umpire thought she was cheating by receiving advice from her coach. “I don’t cheat to win, I’d rather lose,” she said. As she tried to defend herself against the umpire’s call of verbal abuse minutes later, after she called him a “thief,” she was heard saying: “There are a lot of men out here who have said a lot of things and do not get that punishment. Because I am a woman you are going to take this away from me? That is not right.”

The crowd loudly booed U.S. Open officials after the match, leaving Osaka in tears as she stood on the podium, awaiting her trophy. When given the mic, Williams used her platform not to trash talk the umpire or the U.S. Open, or lament her loss, but to ask the crowd to stop booing and instead use the moment to celebrate Osaka’s victory. “Let’s make this the best moment we can and we’ll get through it,” she said. “Let’s give everyone the credit where credit’s due.”

For her part, Osaka spent much of her victory lap thanking her parents and praising Williams, saying that it was an honor and dream to play her in such a high-stakes game. In a post-match interview, Williams said that during the trophy ceremony she looked at Osaka, and thought, “I definitely don’t want her to feel like that.”

The U.S. Open final is the latest in a series of recent moments that have left fans of women’s tennis outraged. Just last week at the U.S. Open, Alize Cornet was penalized for briefly taking her shirt off in order to turn it around, after realizing that it was backwards. Many tennis fans ridiculed the call, noting that male tennis players take their shirts off frequently without getting in trouble.

And only a few weeks ago, the French Open said it would introduce a dress code that would ban outfits like the catsuit worn by Williams during the French Open—a suit she wears to prevent blood clots, after a pulmonary embolism in 2011 left her “on her death bed,” Williams said at the time.

“It will no longer be accepted,” the French Tennis Federation President Bernard Giudicelli said. “One must respect the game and the place.”

Taking a game away from Williams for using the word “thief” during such a high-stakes match is unlikely to do much to quash the notion  that a double standard exists between men and women in today’s competitive tennis field. And the stakes of that double standard can feel even higher for women of color. The support for Williams on Saturday—and throughout her career—comes not just from appreciation for her rare talent, but in part because some fans have an enduring memory of how difficult it is for women of color to make it in expensive, mostly white sports.

To see Williams’s comeback after a traumatic birth stymied over seemingly minor infractions seems unnecessary and malicious. To see the devastation that those penalties wrought on two women of color at the top of their sport, during what should have been a joyous time, is heartbreaking.

During a post-game interview Williams was undeterred: “I’m here to fight for women’s rights and women’s equality,” she said. “The fact that I have to go through this is an example. Maybe it didn’t work out for me, but it’s going to work out for the next person.”

Superstar athletes are rarely as generous, or as classy, or as outright talented as Serena Williams was on Saturday. The events of the U.S. Open show both how difficult it can be for women of color to be accepted as they are, and just how thoroughly she has rejected the status quo. Being the best may not be enough to take home the Grand Slam trophy, but Williams is winning at something much more consequential.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/09/a-heart-breaking-grand-slam/569704/

What BS is this? Those infractions ARE NOT minor

And it's not the word 'thief' that sparked the third violation. It was the constant tirade during the whole changeover that included the threat of never being allowed to officiate her match again.

Williams has threatened to shove a ball down official's throats, told umpires that they're ugly, and has made the statement along the lines of 'you better not see me in the hallway'

She is not classy at all compared to the likes of Li Na, Kvitova, Halep, etc.

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PittsburghTiger

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https://www.thecut.com/2018/09/serena-williams-us-open-referee-sexism.html

 

I don’t care much about the rules of tennis that Serena Williams was accused of violating at Saturday night’s U.S. Open final. Those rules were written for a game and for players who were not supposed to look or express themselves or play the game as beautifully and passionately as either Serena Williams or the young woman who eventually beat her, 20-year-old Naomi Osaka, do. They are rules written for a sport that, until Williams and her sister came along, was dominated by white players, a sport in which white men have violated those rules in frequently spectacular fashion and rarely faced the kind of repercussions that Williams — and Osaka — did on Saturday night.

Chair umpire Carlos Ramos first issued Williams a warning for purportedly having gotten “coaching,” via a hand signal from her coach Patrick Mouratoglou in the stands. This was a mystifying call, so common are coaches’ hand gestures to their players, so unlikely was it that Williams had seen the gesture from across the court, or that it would have had any impact on her game. It was a call that felt designed to provoke and diminish perhaps the greatest tennis player of all time, during a year in which she has made a return to the sport after having had a baby, come close to dying after a postpartum hematoma, and lost her No. 1 seed as a result of her absence from the game.

Ramos’s censure of Williams on Saturday night cannot be disentangled from her gender and race any more than the other recent obstacles she’s faced, from the physical toll of pregnancy, to her profession’s status-tax on it, to her higher risk of maternal mortality and postpartum complication. Because in making the coaching call, in the midst of a match she was playing against a newcomer who looked likely to beat her fair and square, the umpire insinuated that Serena was herself not playing fair and square. That made her livid. And one thing black women are never allowed to be without consequence is livid.

Of course she was mad! She was enraged by being called a cheater, furious at the suggestion that her stature, in this sport that has made her feel so unwelcome even as she has dominated and redefined it, has in any way been anything other than earned. And so, breathless with rage, she said, “I don’t cheat to win; I’d rather lose.” Over and over, she repeated, sometimes pointing her finger at him, “You owe me an apology. You owe me an apology.”

It was her anger that wound up costing her materially in the game: After Williams broke her racket in frustration after losing a serve, which without the first coaching violation would have merited a warning, Ramos docked her a point; in response, still furious primarily at the suggestion that she had cheated, she called him a “thief.” For this comparatively mild epithet he penalized her by taking away a full game.

So during a naturally supercharged Grand Slam final between veteran superstar and the young woman trying to unseat her, a male umpire prodded Serena Williams to anger and then punished her for expressing it. In doing so, he took from her not just the point, not just the game, but ultimately the tournament, even if — and this seems likely — she would have lost it anyway. She was punished for showing emotion, for defiance, for being the player she has always been — driven, passionate, proud, and fully human.

Fully human just like Jimmy Connors, whose famous late-career drive to the U.S. Open semifinals in 1991 included him screaming at the chair umpire, “You’re a bum! I’m out here playing my butt off at 39 years old” and later calling him — perplexingly — “an abortion.” Connors’s contemporary, John McEnroe, famously shattered a thousand rackets and uttered a thousand expletives at umpires. His anger was his calling card, a trademark. In 2008, Nicholas Dawidoff wrote in the New York Times about that famous temper, “For a lot of younger people, especially, the McEnroe out there raging and smashing rackets could express all the displeasure at bad things in the world that they were too inhibited to disclose.”

Serena’s rage is also an expression of displeasure at the bad things in the world, her wrath channeling far broader impulses to defy those rules designed and enforced by, yet so rarely forcefully applied to, white men. As she said at the press conference after the game, “I’ve seen other men call other umpires several things, and I’m here fighting for women’s rights and for women’s equality … For me to say ‘thief’ and for him to take a game? … It was a sexist remark. He’s never took a game from a man because they said thief. For me, it blows my mind. But I’m going to continue to fight for women.”

But it’s not simply that those who are angry at the kinds of things Serena Williams is angry about are “too inhibited” to disclose their fury. It’s also that they are told all the time — like when they watch a tennis final — that if they do permit themselves to rage, even if that rage pales in comparison to the rage of their male peers, their white predecessors, that they will face reprimand. Women are made to understand, all the time, how their reasonable expression of vexation might cost them the game. Women’s challenge to male authority, and especially black women’s challenge to authority, is automatically understood as a threat, a form of defiance that must be quashed.

As Sally Jenkins put it about Ramos, writing in the Washington Post on Saturday night, “He couldn’t take it. He wasn’t going to let a woman talk to him that way. A man, sure. Ramos has put up with worse from a man.” Recalling that just last year, Rafael Nadal had told off Ramos without it costing him a match, Jenkins went on, “But he wasn’t going to take it from a woman pointing a finger at him and speaking in a tone of aggression.”

Women have so much to point fingers about, so many reasons to speak in aggressive tones. In her press conference, Williams mentioned Alizé Cornet, who was hit with a code violation at the Open last week for having briefly taken her shirt off, to turn it back to front, on court, something that men do regularly. Williams did not mention how the catsuit she wore to the French Open — which she had described as both “Wakanda inspired” and a tribute to “all the moms out there who had a tough pregnancy and had to come back and try to be fierce,” and which also had medical functionality, since she has been plagued by blood clots since her 2011 pulmonary embolism — had prompted the French Open to alter its dress code, banning any similar dress in future.

The point isn’t about the catsuit or the shirt or the broken racket or even the U.S. Open title. It’s about the ways in which women’s — and especially nonwhite women’s — dress and bodies and behavior and expression and tone are still deemed unruly if they do not conform to the limited view of femininity established by men, especially if that unruliness suggests a direct threat to male authority.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment on Saturday night was watching Serena Williams work to clean up the mess. After losing to Osaka — 16 years her junior, Haitian-Japanese, looking traumatized at having beaten her childhood idol to win her first Grand Slam in such a perverted fashion — Williams stood beside her as the stadium erupted in boos. Williams spoke to the crowd, asked them to stop booing. “I just want to tell you guys she played well and this is her first Grand Slam. Let’s not boo anymore. We will get through this. No more booing. Congratulations, Naomi.” Williams was working to ensure that young Osaka was getting what some in tennis have had such a hard time offering her: respect, pure admiration, and the acknowledgment that her remarkable achievement was earned and legitimate. Both women were crying.

This has been the ask of women, and most especially, of nonwhite women, since the beginning of time: Take the diminution and injustice and don’t get mad about it; if you get mad, you will get punished for it, and then you will be expected to fix it, to make sure everyone is comfortable again.

In her press conference, Williams said, her voice again breaking, “I just feel like the fact that I have to go through this is just an example for the next person that has emotions and that wants to express themselves and they want to be a strong woman and they’re going to be allowed to do that because of today. Maybe it didn’t work out for me, but it’s gonna work out for the next person.”

As I listened to Williams say this, so swift to contextualize the events of the night as part of a longer, slower process, extending back into our past and deep into the future, as I heard her situate the policing of her anger not as a miscarriage of justice or even as a bad call in a tennis match, but rather as a lifeline thrown, in her own defeat, to another generation, I thought immediately about something Brittney Cooper, Rutgers professor of women’s and gender studies, wrote in her book Eloquent Rage, her stunning paean to black feminist anger.

“Watching Serena play,” Cooper writes, “is like watching eloquent rage personified. Her shots are clear and expressive. Her wins are exultant. Her victories belong to all of us, even though she’s the one who does all the work … That’s kind of how it feels to be a Black woman. Like our victories belong to everyone, even though we do all the work.”

On Saturday, even when it wasn’t a victory, she was still doing all the work.

 

 

 

Edited by PittsburghTiger
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Huckleberry

Huckleberry 34407

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Billie Jean's King take was nauseating. She admitted that Serena broke the rules and then acted like a petulant little child.

But proceeded to say the takeaway was that women are treated unfairly, which should be addressed by changing the rules on coaching. Wait, why would the rule need to be changed if Williams was treated unfairly?

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AtticusFinch

AtticusFinch 155

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On 9/10/2018 at 8:48 AM, PittsburghTiger said:

David A. Love is a writer and commentator based in Philadelphia. He contributes to a number of publications, including Atlanta Black Star, WHYY and Al Jazeera. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidALove. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. View more opinion articles on CNN.

 

(CNN) - The unfair treatment displayed toward Serena Williams at the US Open is further proof that, in tennis, women are subjected to a double standard. That standard is particularly glaring in the case of female athletes of color. 

Only days after the announcement that Colin Kaepernick is the face of Nike's "Just Do It" 30th anniversary campaign, Williams, a black tennis star, was punished for displaying justifiable anger when she called out the umpire for his on-the-court-sexism. She was then penalized with a $17,000 fine, $10,000 of it for her remarks to the umpire.
David A. Love
 
David A. Love
The match should have been a cause for celebration, coming over 60 years since Althea Gibson became thefirst African-American player to compete in the US Nationals and win the US Open, Wimbledon and the French Open. Gibson faced racism as a trailblazing black woman, with hecklers at her first tennis match in Forest Hills on August 29, 1950, shouting "Beat the n-----!" 
 
Fast forward to 2018 and Williams was matched against Naomi Osaka, a Japanese and Haitian American player who, like Serena and Venus, is part of a tennis powerhouse family with her sister Mari. That Naomi had the chance to play against her idol was overshadowed by the racist and sexist officiating of the tennis tournament. 
 
At Saturday's match, umpire Carlos Ramos issued Williams a warning for allegedly receiving illegal coaching through hand gestures. Though her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, admitted to coaching, Williams denied she had cheated and demanded Ramos apologize. Then Williams broke her racket out of frustration over losing a serve, for which Ramos imposed a one-point penalty. Williams responded by calling Ramos a "thief" for stealing a point from her.
 
Social media weighs in on Serena's loss
 
 
 
Williams lost the match to Osaka and took the defeat with grace, but not without making a statement. At a press conference, Williams said she is fighting for women's rights and women's equality, calling out Ramos for his sexism. "He's never taken a game from a man because they said 'thief.' For me, it blows my mind. But I'm going to continue to fight for women," Williams said. 
 
Other players have notably found fault with Ramos. In 2016, he even accused Williams' older sister, Venus, of receiving coaching during a match. 
 
(Some in tennis have defended Ramos and say he has been tough on male as well as female players.)
 
Williams, who returned to tennis after childbirth, has faced an uphill battle in recent weeks. More specifically, she has been policed for her blackness. She has faced unfair drug testing and disgusting comments about her body. And she has been banned from wearing her Wakanda-esque black catsuit at the French Open -- which was designed to reduce her risk of blood clotting, the very issue that almost claimed her life during childbirth.
Now, perhaps the greatest tennis player in the world pays a $17,000 price for her anger. Why? Because to many, including likely the tennis authorities that be, Williams' reaction affirms the racial stereotype of a black woman who dares to speak her mind -- loudmouthed, uncouth and dare we say "ghetto."
 
Of course, sports history is replete with men who have shown rage on the court, and not only avoided punishment but received accolades. The antics, outbursts and temper tantrums of John McEnroe,Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors are just a few examples. And male tennis players, such as James Blake, have admitted to saying worse than Williams did -- without suffering penalties. As Billie Jean King tweeted, "When a woman is emotional, she's 'hysterical' and she's penalized for it. When a man does the same, he's 'outspoken' & and there are no repercussions." 
 
This double standard is nothing new, but it is receiving more attention in the #MeToo era. The repercussions go far beyond the tennis world. As Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, asked Judge Brett Kavanaugh at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in a discussion on Roe v. Wade, "Can you think of any laws that give the government power to make decisions about the male body?"
 
The penalty against Serena Williams is evidence that black women still face an uphill battle, and we have a lot of work left to do if we are to be a society of equals.

 

Fake news

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