US Open 2018

Joe_ Public

walshb wrote: »

She has brought the game into disrepute and should not be let away with it..

The officials are the sport. They are men and women like us all, doing their best for everyone involved, and they deserve respect..

No real surprise. Over the years there has been a steady erosion of standards, manners and class in every walk of life..

Will be interesting to see what further action is taken. Tempting for the WTA to fudge it, given the nature of the coverage and Serena largely dictating the narrative, my bet would be on a insignificant fine accompanied by a statement outlining what a great player, mother and role model she is blah blah blah....however we have to protect officials and cannot tolerate etc etc.

I'm not sure about this erosion of standards you're referencing, are things better/worse/the same as they have always been? Seems to me some sports have got to grips with low toleration of boorish behaviour better than others. I remember reading about the Irish badminton guy Scott Evans a few years ago and how he nearly got thrown out of the sport for abuse of an official. There has got to be a zero tolerance approach regarding abusing of referees and other officials and that message has to seep through.

walshb

Niles Crane wrote: »

He was but at least he seems like a pretty decent individual in general and has a sense of humour about himself , something you can't really say about Serena Williams.

Agreed. Kind of guy you could approach and chat with...

Serena comes across as boorish, rude and very aloof..

Wasn’t it Martin Brundle on one his grid walks who was totally blanked be her in a very rude way....

MisterAnarchy

Harry Palmr wrote: »

I liked the way she tapped into the spirit of Harry Kane! :pac:

Terrible person, like many high achievers Williams is borderline sociopath.

I wouldn't call her a sociopath.
A sociopath feels no empathy, no emotion. A sociopath is unencumbered by feelings such as fear, anxiety, stress, depression, remorse, guilt, caring, and love.

She suffers massively from anxiety and stress, she was paralysed by fear in her last two finals.
Smashing your racket and roaring at the umpire, lack of emotion you think.

She is just a bad loser and a spoilt brat.
Most great athletes are bad losers though, that's why they have such a will to win.

splinter65

I’m glad I won’t have to deal with her on any level when she surfaces later today.
I’d imagine there will be any number of people in the firing line.
She badly wanted to prove that she could do it all, become a wife and mother and still win grand slams by beating young fit childless single women 15 years younger then her.
The ultimate feminist heroine she’d be all the while ignoring the glaring fact that her untold wealth means that these things are made much easier for her then regular Jane Doe retail assistant married to a general operative.
She was still going to declare “ I’m a black woman from an impoverished background and I can have it all and you can too if you weren’t being held back by the patriarchy “.
Rubbish.

BorneTobyWilde

To tell a umpire '' you'll never work on another court as long as you live'' is a death threat. She said the same to a lines judge '' I'll kill you''
How she is even allowed on a tennis court is beyond me.

sligeach

Chivito550 wrote: »

Love the way people are building this up. It will inevitably be another 6-2 6-3 type scoreline, done and dusted in 80 minutes.

You weren't far off the scoreline, Serena might have made it 6-4 in the second set had it not been for her disgraceful histrionics. I'm sure your prediction was in Williams favour though. :pac:

0127647

Reading people trying to defend Williams is akin to listening to Lance Armstrongs defenders during his career.

The media questions during her press conference were an absolute disgrace and shows the depths the US media have fallen to.

Without doubt Katrina Adams should resign for her disgraceful press release

dominatinMC

0127647 wrote: »

Reading people trying to defend Williams is akin to listening to Lance Armstrongs defenders during his career.

The media questions during her press conference were an absolute disgrace and shows the depths the US media have fallen to.

Without doubt Katrina Adams should resign for her disgraceful press release

They need a Paul Kimmage to shake them up!

Joe_ Public

0127647 wrote: »

Reading people trying to defend Williams is akin to listening to Lance Armstrongs defenders during his career.

The media questions during her press conference were an absolute disgrace and shows the depths the US media have fallen to.

Without doubt Katrina Adams should resign for her disgraceful press release

It didn't bode well when three of the first 5 questions concerned her daughter. The second question is worth quoting in full because it truly is a zinger: "How did motherhood influence how you comforted Naomi out there?" You'd really need a sick bag handy for that stuff.

lostcat

The coaching violation warning still seems odd, her coach is right it happens all the time (and Toni Nadal was notorious for itbsnd openly admitted it, despite what was said above, and I don't remember Rafa ever being pulled for it).
It's no excuse to spiral out of conttol, certainly, but if it happened to me in a slam final I think I would have words with the umpire about why he chose to start calling it out at this particular time.
The umpire applied a very strict interpretation of the rules at each juncture, and I'm pretty sure that far more leeway is shown at other times, to other players. If you take the 'its Serena, we don't like her' out of it, the above is reasonable.

velo.2010

Amazed at how many people defending her have completely missed the point when they shout 'sexism'.

A plausible call of sexism would be if the men had different rules altogether and were allowed to bitch and moan to the umpires without fear of code violations. But the rules are the same and the fact they are not seemingly enforced in the men's game is beside the point. Williams played another woman last night and not a man.

As for imploring that she could never cheat because she is a mother, is the same ridiculous logic you hear, for example, when some say the McCann's couldn't possibly have harmed their child because they are medical professionals.

Joe_ Public

lostcat wrote: »

The coaching violation warning still seems odd, her coach is right it happens all the time (and Toni Nadal was notorious for itbsnd openly admitted it, despite what was said above, and I don't remember Rafa ever being pulled for it).
It's no excuse to spiral out of conttol, certainly, but if it happened to me in a slam final I think I would have words with the umpire about why he chose to start calling it out at this particular time.
The umpire applied a very strict interpretation of the rules at each juncture, and I'm pretty sure that far more leeway is shown at other times, to other players. If you take the 'its Serena, we don't like her' out of it, the above is reasonable.

Apologies, think i may have misinterpreted your earlier post. I didnt see that you specified coaching violations, Ramos has definitly pulled Rafa up on time violations before but no idea on coaching, probably not or we'd have heard by now.

Still, it all makes little difference as far as I'm concerned. In nearly all instances of officiating across all sports, I tend to agree with criticism of lack of consistency when it comes to applying the rules (the Kyrgios incident is very relevant here) but I will never be critical of an official who decides, sometimes under intense pressure, to actually apply the said rules. He or she is certainly not the issue.

Ramos could have chosen to limit the initial transgression to an informal warning, but when that didn't happen, he was limited in what action could be subsequently taken. Being experienced and a veteran of such situations, Williams knew this as well. The provocation seemed quite deliberate and took place over the course of two separate changeovers, during which she made comments regarding his future and called him a liar and a thief. Had Osaka not finished the match when she did, I think there's a fair chance a match penalty would have been fairly soon forthcoming.

Sprinter Sacre

A horrible role model for aspiring athletes and mothers but unfortunately both will look up to her. A terrible human being who is as bad a winner as she as a loser. It would be sweet justice for all her sh*t if she never won another slam and missed out on the record.

Chivito550

When she said “I don’t cheat”, am I the only one who immediately thought about her ‘panic room’ excuse for not answering the door to the drug testers?

Royale with Cheese

So... Djokovic - Del Potro then?

Chivito550

Also good to hear Daniela Hantuchova call it as it was too. Most pundits are too afraid to say anything negative about Serena.

lostcat

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

So... Djokovic - Del Potro then?

If Djokovic is as dialled in as he was in the semi he should win handy enough. The crowd will be all Delpo, which will only make Djokovic play better.

However, Djokovic really doesn't do as well in finals here as he should ( he has lost 5 I think, a couple of which he should have won) and he can struggle against heavy hitters, so i give Delpo a small chance. Looking forward to what I think will be a cracker.

Joe_ Public

I made the grievous mistake earlier of looking through twitter to see what was being said, two of the first things i saw were odes to Serena from Piers Morgan and Sally Jenkins (that devout and passionate defender of victims of sporting injustice from Serena to Lance). It just reminded me that twitter is truly the modern incarnation of that great Yeats line about the best lacking all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Floppybits

Chivito550 wrote: »

Also good to hear Daniela Hantuchova call it as it was too. Most pundits are too afraid to say anything negative about Serena.

Greg Rudeski was not holding back.either last night after the match was over. He seemed pretty angry and was rightfully pointing out how well Osaka played. Where as on the tennis channel the panel there, including Davenport were blaming the umpire. Anyway it's all about Serena as usual and hardly anything about.poor Osaka who played Williams off the court

Cushie Butterfield

When all is said & done it doesn’t change this:


A well deserved win for 20 yr old Naomi Osaka.

She now knows the true meaning of: Never meet your Hero as you’re bound to be disappointed.

Williams was way out of order & needs to learn that no one player rules the roost & is bigger than the sport itself. Hope she gets a well deserved reception of boos when she walks on court for her first Australian Open match in Melbourne, as the New York crowd merely fuelled her ego.

sligeach

I feel like there should be a petition to name a hurricane after Serena next year during hurricane season in honour of her meltdown. Hurricane Serena, it has a certain ring to it. See how much the Americans will cheer that on. And it'll give her another chance to be the center of attention, blow hot air, spew garbage and leave a wake of destruction in her path again.

irelandrover

She has to get a big fine for her outburst. She basically claimed she could pick her own umpires by saying he'd never be on a court with her again and claimed he was corrupt with her thief and liar statements. It can't be let go by the authorities.

sligeach

Serena Williams has been fined a total of $17,000 for three code violations during the U.S. Open final...

The tournament referee's office docked Williams $10,000 for "verbal abuse" of chair umpire Carlos Ramos, $4,000 for being warned for coaching, and $3,000 for breaking her racket. The money comes out of her prize money of $1.85 million as the runner-up.

https://abc7news.com/amp/sports/serena-williams-fined-$17000-for-us-open-code-violations/4185825/

$17,000 is chump change out of her $1,850,000 pay cheque. I would hope that's not the end of the matter.

Floppybits

Hard to see past Djokovic for tonight. I am hoping Del Potro can do.it though

LazySamaritan

Williams said it was sexism because the umpire had never penalised a male player for calling him a thief but how many other tennis players, male or female, have called that guy a thief?

Did she actually mean name calling in general?

Johnmb

LazySamaritan wrote: »

Williams said it was sexism because the umpire had never penalised a male player for calling him a thief but how many other tennis players, male or female, have called that guy a thief?

Did she actually mean name calling in general?

She meant he's sexist because he wouldn't let her do what she wants. He actually penalised Djokovic for having a bad attitude towards him in the French I think it was. Most men, and women, have enough cop-on to not be abusive towards the officials when they are already on two warnings. Serena lacks that cop-on. Up to recently, any time she was caught out by it she put it down to racism, now she has a new -ism to claim she'd a victim of. The sad thing is that those who pander to her and allow her to claim such victimhood are doing a great disservice to genuine victims of racism and sexism, and make it easy for racists and sexists to belittle the arguments by providing these strawmen scenarios to point to as being typical...

LazySamaritan

Johnmb wrote: »

She meant he's sexist because he wouldn't let her do what she wants. He actually penalised Djokovic for having a bad attitude towards him in the French I think it was. Most men, and women, have enough cop-on to not be abusive towards the officials when they are already on two warnings. Serena lacks that cop-on. Up to recently, any time she was caught out by it she put it down to racism, now she has a new -ism to claim she'd a victim of. The sad thing is that those who pander to her and allow her to claim such victimhood are doing a great disservice to genuine victims of racism and sexism, and make it easy for racists and sexists to belittle the arguments by providing these strawmen scenarios to point to as being typical...

I assumed she simply misspoke at the press conference because to base the accusation solely on the basis of using the word thief is just ridiculous.

I gave her too much credit.

Johnmb

LazySamaritan wrote: »

I assumed she simply misspoke at the press conference because to base the accusation solely on the basis of using the word thief is just ridiculous.

I gave her too much credit.

She's trying to make out that the game was defaulted because she just called him a thief. It wasn't, it was defaulted because it was her third warning in the match. She didn't get that third warning just for calling him a thief either. He had received a torrent of abusive and aggressive ranting from her for two full changes of ends, including receiving threats that he would never umpire another one of her matches again. The last thing she did was call him a thief before getting up from her chair and receiving the violation. She was probably getting that warning regardless due to everything else she had said, but she is definitely playing down the reasons she got it. While both men and women have gotten away with more than a "thief" comment, I can't think of any that have gotten away with such a prolonged abusive and aggressive rant aimed directly at one of the officials the way she did last night.

walshb

In a nutshell, she’s just a grade A asshole...world is full of them.

No reasons, excuses, stories. People need to stop looking for reasons for why some people are assholes...

Like to see Juan get slam number 2 later...

Joe_ Public

Whoever wins my main hope for the match is that we don’t get a sexist umpire and loads of warnings and penalties are dished out for all manner of things.

Actually think it could be a good match though. 4-14 head to head doesn’t look great for delpo but recent encounters tend to be close and competitive so if he can raise his game a notch he’s got to have a decent shot at it.