Numbers don’t back

NO GENDER BIAS

Serena Williams argued that she was subject to a double standard when she was cited for verbal abuse by the chair umpire Carlos Ramos during the US Open women’s final last Saturday.

“There are men out here who do a lot worse than me, but because I’m a woman you are going to take this away from me?” she protested to Brian Earley, the tournament referee. “That is not right.”

Each situation should be evaluated on its own merits, but according to data compiled by officials at Grand Slam tournaments for the past 20 years, men are penalized more often for verbal abuse.

Those figures, obtained by The New York Times, show that from 1998 to 2018 at the four Grand Slam events, men have been fined for misbehaviour with much more frequency than women with one significant exception: coaching violations.

Fines are a result of investigations by the tournament referee and the Grand Slam supervisor into code-of-conduct violations assessed by the chair umpire during a match. The figures from the Grand Slam tournaments are from all matches in qualifying, main-draw singles and doubles for a 20-year period - tens of thousands of matches.

Men have been fined 646 times for racket abuse and 287 times for unsportsmanlike conduct. Women have been fined 99 times for racquet abuse and 67 times for unsportsmanlike conduct during that span.

The disparities are similar for audible obscenity fines (344 for the men, 140 for the women) and, most relevant to Williams’ complaint, verbal abuse (62 for the men, 16 for the women).

Williams was penalized for verbal abuse after calling Ramos

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