Tennis must give its gagged umpires the right to strike back
Tsitsipas comes across as a cut-price Socrates for the Instagram generation
One year on, the only version we have of Serena Williams’s bitter US Open feud with umpire Carlos Ramos comes courtesy of the player herself. A “liar” and a “thief ”, she called him, before attaching a charge of sexism to his decision to give her a game penalty for on-court coaching, racket trashing and verbal abuse during her tempestuous final defeat by Naomi Osaka. Already, the United States Tennis Association, in its latest pitiful show of genuflection to their superstar, has ruled that the Portuguese can no longer officiate any of her matches in New York. Williams, for her part, has formally rendered Ramos a nonentity. When his name was put to her this week, she replied, acidly: “I don’t know who that is.”
Not content with defaming Ramos, she is now publicly humiliating him. That Williams felt profoundly wronged is selfevident. She saw a therapist after the dramatic scenes inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, arguing in an essay in Harper’s Bazaar: “We are not allowed to have emotions, we are not allowed to be passionate.” Ramos, though, was not punishing her for her passion. He was reacting to finding his integrity impugned in front of a worldwide TV audience. No one has yet made a persuasive case, either, that his application of the rules was anything but correct.
Conventionally, in a high-profile dispute between two parties, we would be permitted to hear both sides. But how much do you suppose Ramos has been at liberty to say in defending his good name? Nothing. The Tours order that all umpires, in upholding their impartiality, must refrain from speaking about any specific players away from the court. His only comment, deliberately not referring to Williams directly, was: “It’s a delicate situation, but a la carte arbitration does not exist.” For 12 months, Williams has peddled a caricature of Ramos as a symbol of patriarchy and injustice. But the subject of her ire is still powerless to set the record straight.
Woe betide any umpire who tries to break the omerta. This week, one did: Damian Steiner, no less, who was in the chair last month for the longest Wimbledon men’s singles final, between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. Upon returning to his native Argentina, Steiner gave a few interviews to mark his career’s greatest moment. The contents were hardly incriminating. He claimed that there needed to be rule changes, and that he thought the Swiss would win when ahead 8-7, 40-15 in the final set. Sadly for the 44-year-old, the ATP took one look at these remarks and handed him a lifetime ban.
It was a reminder, if any were needed, of the ATP’S mangled sense of proportion. At Flushing Meadows last year, Mohamed Lahyani swept down off his perch to give Nick Kyrgios, in the midst of one of his usual tanks, a pep talk. Pierre-hugues Herbert, whom the Australian duly came back to beat, had every right to be furious. Here was a supposedly even-handed judge giving one player a competitive advantage. This, for once, was a blatant overstepping of professional duty. Lahyani, however, was suspended for just two tournaments for his transgression. By contrast, Steiner, who had the temerity to speak to the media, can never umpire at the top level again.
It is not only the inconsistency that grates. The larger disgrace is the sheer emasculation of officialdom in tennis. Player power in the sport is out of control, to the point where umpires can be abused and belittled without any opportunity for redress. Take Fergus Murphy, who has had the misfortune to preside over the tiresome Kyrgios more than once this summer.
At Queen’s Club, the Canberra charmer ridiculed the Irishman for his choice of hat. In Cincinnati, he upped the ante, describing Murphy as a “f------ t---”, refusing to shake his hand, and spitting on the court.
The only choice for Murphy is to keep a dignified silence. Should he dare give Kyrgios the type of rollicking his behaviour warrants, he knows that he risks grave sanction himself. In far less genteel sports, such flagrant disrespect for officials would never be tolerated. In tennis, it is pathetically indulged. The most recent offender is Stefanos Tsitsipas, the young Athenian who, through his narcissistic social media output, comes across as a kind of cut-price Socrates for the Instagram generation. In his first round US Open defeat by Andrey Rublev, he was taking absurdly long to primp his bandanna at changeovers, before umpire Damien Dumusois ordered him to hurry up.
To that, Tsitsipas ranted: “Do what ever you want, because you are the worst. You have something against me, because you are French probably and you are all weirdos. Give me a warning, I don’t care.” He was deducted a point but, predictably, he has yet to receive any further rebuke for his outburst. The time is fast approaching when umpires, routinely hung out to dry by the game’s authorities, will have to start leading the counterattack themselves.
Briefly, a few did contemplate it last year, drawing up a plan to boycott Williams’s matches, thus sending a message that no player, regardless of her power, could denounce hardworking men and women however she pleased.
Williams, it pays to recall, has not always had sexism to invoke in her attacks on umpires. In her New York final in 2011, she raged that Eva Asderaki, a female chair, was a “hater” and “unattractive inside”. But the malaise is far from confined to Williams alone. Too many top-ranked players feel emboldened to slander people guilty of nothing more than doing their jobs in challenging circumstances. The officials need to mobilise, unionise, whatever it takes, to show that the situation cannot stand.
Tennis must turn the page to a fresh chapter. Call it: The Umpire Strikes Back.