Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'The most controversial Grand Slam finals' that was published in Newsband

The most controversial Grand Slam finals

Serena Williams’s judgment at the U.S. Open final was poor. The 2018 U.S. Open was one of the most controversial Grand Slam finals in recent history.  

The controversial event was the one that transpired between Serena Williams and the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, at the 2018 U.S. Open. Williams was given a code violation for in-match coaching, for which her coach Patrick Mouratoglou has to be blamed. It was against the Grand Slam rulebook. Since the coach could not be penalised the player was made the target. Williams then smashed her racquet in frustration after losing serve. Racquet abuse is a code violation. After that, she went on to call the chair umpire a “thief” and “liar”, statements that were considered verbal abuse. Williams was ultimately awarded a game penalty at the most crucial juncture of the match and went on to lose the championship to Naomi Osaka.

Ramos, a gold-badge chair umpire, is known mostly for being a stickler for rules. Williams could have kept her composure. She went on to argue and accused Ramos of sexism. Her accusation was not true since in the 2018 U.S. Open, men received 23 fines for code violations compared to nine for women.  

It is true that as an African-American woman, she has been at the receiving end of unfair treatment on several occasions. But, however, being an extremely talented player and a tennis icon such hot exchanges from her side were not expected. This is dangerous for the young generation who follow her as their role model.

Was Serena showing off her 'greatness' at the fag end of her career. What was shocking was the manner in which Serena handled the issue. She could have called for the match referee to intervene if she felt that the decision of the umpire was unfair. Instead she screamed abuses at him alleging malafide intentions. This appears to be the Yankee way of getting things done. The words she had used were seriously damaging to an umpire who is supposed to be honest to the core, which by all available information, appears to be true. The referees should be given some powers to deal with such players since Serena is not the first to do this. This must stop.

Serena is a bad loser. This is not the first incident. She once threw verbal abuse at a line umpire for calling foot fault. Now after this incident taking umbrage under sexism looks childish.

Some of her fans blame the referee. According to them, the cascade of unfortunate events, which even ruined Osaka's well-deserved victory, was started by an initial mistake made by Carlos Ramos. Serena Williams is a great champion and does not need coaching from the sidelines, they say. Ramos should have honoured her simple statement that she did not see the signal and let it go at that.

Anyway, Serena Williams lost. There had been previous incidents where male white players like Mackenro lost their temper and took it on the umpires. All these were ignored. Whatever she did might be wrong, but what about incidents on court by male players like Mackenro who defied every one.