Serena’s sexism claims given a serve
Australian Open semifinalist and Kiwi tennis commentator Belinda Cordwell rejects the view sexism played a part in the treatment of Serena Williams in the US Open final on Sunday.
Former world No 1 Williams, a
23-time grand slam winner, said she was fighting for the future rights of women players in publicly criticising chair umpire Carlos Ramos.
Williams alleged double standards when Ramos warned her for being coached from the grandstand, then penalised her a point for smashing her racket, and – after Williams called him ‘‘a thief’’ – imposed a third violation which cost her a game.
She was already in real trouble, being outplayed by first-time major finalist Naomi Osaka who took the title
6-2 6-4 amid a chorus of boos. Williams, who was fined US$17,000
(NZ$26,000) by the US Tennis Association for her outburst, said the loss of the game for umpire abuse was ‘‘not fair’’.
‘‘There’s a lot of men out here that have said a lot of things and because they are men, that doesn’t happen,’’ she said.
But Cordwell, who won five singles finals in her career and reached world No 17, didn’t see the incident the way the American superstar did.
‘‘I didn’t see yesterday’s incident from a sexist perspective. I know that’s what Serena said, but actually, no I don’t agree with it at all,’’ she told Stuff.
‘‘If you look at the situation, the umpire followed the rules. There’s a debate about him following them to the letter of the law.
‘‘Clearly the first violation, coaching, is a rather fluid rule, it gets flouted by all the coaches. So there is a debate about whether the umpire should have called the coaching violation in the first place, given that all the players and all the coaches did it.
‘‘However, in my opinion, he followed the letter of the law and he did his job following the rule book. So for Serena to then claim that he did so because she was a woman, I think was misjudged on her part. I don’t think that’s true.
‘‘We all do things in the heat of the moment that I think you can regret afterwards. And I think that she was shocked that she was called for a code violation through coaching, because that’s not really something that has happened [much before].
‘‘So in terms of that, she was shocked at the lack of consistency. But to then make the jump to that being sexism, I couldn’t follow that line of reasoning.’’
Cordwell said if there was a history of Williams copping unfair penalties she might have had a point, but in fact the opposite was more accurate.
‘‘Actually, she has some form when it comes to attacking linespeople and umpires, and especially at the US Open, quite a lot of vitriol to the officials.’’
That was part of her way of operating on the court ‘‘as opposed to whether she’s been treated unfairly or not because she’s a woman’’, Cordwell said.
Officials should have got together at the start of the US Open and made it clear they would not tolerate such behaviour, then it would have been fair on all players, she said.
‘‘It’s difficult to actually start that process at a final of a tournament, with such high stakes,’’ Cordwell said.