Williams keen to put US Open row in past but still denies coaching claims
▶ American also stands by her comments that officials in the sport treat women differently to men
Serena Williams has said she is trying to “move on” from the row that dominated the US Open final, but the former world No 1 maintains that female players are treated differently to their male counterparts.
The 23-time grand slam champion lost the New York final in straight sets to Japan’s Naomi Osaka after a fiery confrontation with chair umpire Carlos Ramos that she later blamed on sexism.
Williams called Ramos a “thief” and a “liar” in a running row with the Portuguese official that eventually saw her docked a game.
In an interview with Australia’s Channel Ten, the 36-yearold American said a male player would not have been treated the same way. She said women could not get away with “even half of what a guy can do”.
“Right now we are not, as it’s proven, in that same position,” she said. “But that’s neither here nor there. I’m just trying, most of all, to recover from that and move on.”
Williams said she felt “on the cusp of this amazing moment” before the 6-2, 6-4 loss to Osaka. A win would have taken her to 24 grand slams, equalling Australian Margaret Court’s all-time record.
The dispute with Ramos began when Williams was issued a warning for coaching, something her coach sitting in the player’s box, Patrick Mouratoglou, admitted to doing.
Williams said she had not seen the Frenchman make a gesture and labelled his subsequent admission “a really confusing moment”.
“I asked him ‘what are you talking about you were coaching?’,” she said. “We don’t have signals, we’ve never had signals. He said he made a motion, and I said ‘OK so you made a motion and now you’re telling people you were coaching me?’.
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would you say that?”
Meanwhile, Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev won clutch singles matches as Team Europe beat Team World 13-8 to retain the Laver Cup on the third and final day of action in Chicago on Sunday.
Federer’s hard-fought 6-7, 7-6, 10-7 victory over American John Isner put the Europeans just three points from their victory target and Zverev got them there with a 6-7, 7-5, 10-7 win over Kevin Anderson.
German Zverev needed to be at his sharpest to get past the South African stalwart but won the final five points of the third set tie-break to ensure Europe would keep the trophy they won at the inaugural event in Prague last year.
“It was such a close match all around, not only this one but all weekend, a few points here and there and it could have been different,” Zverev, 21, said.
“I’m just happy to get the win and we defended the title, that’s the most important thing.” It was fitting that Zverev punctuated the triumph for Europe by conquering Anderson, one of the most formidable players of the tournament.
Anderson had teamed up with American Jack Sock to defeat Federer and Novak Djokovic in doubles on Day 1, then beat Djokovic in a singles contest on Saturday.
On Sunday, John McEnroe’s Team World had taken their first lead of the tournament at 8-7 after the opening doubles when Sock and Isner slipped past Federer and Zverev 4-6, 7-6, 11-9.
Federer needed to save three match points to disarm Isner’s big serve and take the day’s opening singles contest, which like all of Sunday’s matches, was worth three points.
Team World needed to win one of the first two singles matches to take the tournament down to the final singles clash between Djokovic and Australian Nick Kyrgios – but Zverev’s victory ensured it was not required.
Grigor Dimitrov, David Goffin and Kyle Edmund were the other members of the triumphant team led by Swedish great Bjorn Borg.
“It’s been an unbelievable week,” said Borg. “I’m very proud of my team.”