US Open Women’s Final: Were Serena’s Code Violations Unfair?
Just as I thought that
controversies were over at the US Open and we can focus on the game we have the
greatest controversy of all. The women’s final was not just
controversial it was unfair. Inbuilt into the philosophy of sport is fairness.
For video clips and a timeline of the controversial events during the women’s final, see:
For video clips and a timeline of the controversial events during the women’s final, see:
First code violation – warning for coaching:
Serena is 1-0 up in the second
set against Osaka when she is given a coaching violation by the umpire, Carlos
Ramos. Serena defends herself, which she has every right to do since she is a
sportswoman with integrity. Her reputation is now being called into question by
giving her this warning through no fault of her own.
Should Ramos have given Serena a
warning for coaching? The warning is based on Mouratoglou’s hand signals while
sitting in the stands. The rules are vague but do state that coaching consists
of communication between player and coach. The word ‘between’ is the crucial one.
It is open to interpretation but there does not seem to be any evidence of
Serena communicating with her coach. If he has loose hands that’s not coaching.
Serena says she did not see him do it, they have no agreed hints and
Mouratoglou himself says he believes she did not see his gesture. This is believable.
The hand signals (thumbs up and moving his arms backwards and forwards) were
hard to interpret and could mean any number of things and were conducted at a
low level ie chest level but lower than the shoulder height of the person in
front of him. He is also seated behind people and a man to his left had his arms crossed and raised so a diagonal view of Mouratoglou's hands was somewhat obscured. It is, therefore, highly likely that Serena would not be able to see the
gestures at all because she’s at an angle which would obscure him. The umpire, being higher up on his chair, might see the
hand gestures better than Serena. So the umpire may not be merely doing his job
because, although there is a no-coaching rule to invoke, I’m not convinced he
invoked it correctly.
He is only half correct. What Mouratoglou did may constitute
coaching, especially since he has subsequently admitted that he attempted to
coach. Nevertheless, did he do it as a kneejerk reaction on seeing what he
believed was Osaka’s coach giving her coaching signals? Why does Mouratoglou do
a coaching signal despite knowing Serena can’t see it, has no agreed signals
with him and is never coached through matches even when allowed to do so on the
WTA? Why risk her getting a code violation which will distract and upset her mid-match, especially given her ethics on the matter? He knows Serena is strongly anti-coaching during matches so would disapprove of his actions and would refuse the help if given the option, as she does on the WTA. And why didn’t the umpire take this into consideration before issuing her with a coaching code violation? Why did the umpire not see Osaka being coached if he is such an observant
umpire?
So, the umpire was also half wrong because he should have only given
the warning if he could clearly fulfil the communication requirement of the
rule which he couldn’t. Serena should not be warned for something she did not
participate in or agree to. Furthermore, if Mouratoglou is right in saying that
the umpire was not warning or penalising Osaka for the coaching she was
receiving then the umpire’s decision was biased and the outcome of the match is
null and void. As a result, both should win or both lose or have a re-match
which would be the preferred option. This is unlikely since people always cite
that it would set a precedence. Not that that’s a viable excuse. If it
transpired that Osaka was successfully changing tactics and beating Serena as a
result of the umpire allowing her to be coached but not allowing Serena the
same conditions, then the result should not go down in history. Philosophically,
for the match to be fair it had to be played in such a way that both players
played under the same conditions. This seems not to have been the case. So the
records ideally should reflect this by declaring it a draw or by recording the
result of a rematch.
Second code violation: racquet
abuse – point deduction for Serena
Smashing a racquet often results
in the umpire issuing a warning so it is a more standard application of the
rules. However, had the umpire not been overzealous with Serena earlier with
the coaching warning, the racquet incident would not have happened or would
have only been a warning not a point deduction. Also, there is room for the
umpire using their judgement and discretion. Ramos, seeing how upset Serena was
already, should not then upset her further by giving her a racquet abuse
warning and deducting a point. Here’s where men and women differ. Men coldly
apply rules with no sensitivity to the situation or empathy with the person
affected by the situation. It is surely part of the umpire’s job to deescalate
not escalate a situation or conflict or, as here, cause the conflict in the
first place. If he accidentally started the conflict by issuing the coaching
violation through believing that he was following the rules, he could have
handled it better when Serena politely pointed out it was a misapplication of
the rule. If this is a gold standard umpire the standard of umpiring is set
low! It perhaps doesn’t help that the stop clock was ticking between points.
Time should have been taken to deal with Serena’s concern that the no-coaching
rule had not been correctly applied before resuming play. If no resolution on
court can be found that is satisfactory the umpire should be replaced because
the presence of that umpire is adversely affecting the match, both emotionally and
practically. The player’s emotions are running high and their stress levels
will also rise, meaning that she will struggle to think clearly throughout the rest
of the match which will adversely impact the end result. And practically,
if there is bias or error, it pervades the whole match rather than being
contained to a few games. When a resolution is made later post-match, it is too
late and has already potentially affected the outcome and is messier to fix. It
is easier to replace the umpire because a match is under time pressure. If it
is complex and needs looking into then removing the umpire so the issue does
not impact on the entire match deescalates the conflict in itself.
The racquet abuse rule needs
changing anyway because it is out-dated and totally ridiculous. It was started to
control the excessive outbursts of male players such as McEnroe. Yet this rule
is inconsistently applied. As Serena pointed out, male players still get away
with worse behaviour than female players. At Wimbledon, I saw a female player
receiving a racquet abuse warning for merely dropping her racquet to ground
level while running for an out-wide ball she couldn’t return. She was shocked and
defended herself saying she can hardly commit racquet abuse mid-play! She didn’t
smash it down and was not annoyed at the time. So there was no excuse for
misconstruing it as racquet abuse. There are stricter rules at Wimbledon to protect
the grass courts but she did not use enough force for this to apply either.
Such ridiculous applications of rules are rarely, if ever, applied to men. So, hypothetically, these rules apply to both men and women players but are often
applied unequally between the sexes. It was male players who started a need for
the abuse rules yet it is adversely affecting female players more than the men.
Besides, it is an illogical rule. The racquet belongs to you not anyone else.
What you do with it should be up to you as long as you don’t cause harm to
anyone or abuse their possessions eg smashing your opponent’s racquet on or
off-court.
Third code violation – verbal abuse
to umpire – game deduction
Serena is given a game deduction
penalty for calling the umpire a ‘liar’ and ‘thief’ for unfairly deducting a
point off her earlier in the match. There is nothing wrong with what she said
to him. Players should be allowed to argue their case and point out unfair
treatment and misapplication of rules. Not allowing them to argue for their version
of events for fear of receiving penalties is silencing and encourages other
umpires to think they can get away with miscarriages of justice. This wasn’t
the first time at this year’s US Open that an umpire went beyond his role. During
Kyrgios’ match v Herbert an umpire took the liberty of descending from his
chair and telling Kyrgios to up his game. Another umpire caused mayhem when
issuing Cornet with a code violation for turning her top around speedily on court
on finding she had put it on back to front. Verdasco wasn’t supervised properly
during a heat break and, consequently, had contact with his coach. This is
against the rules. He got away with it! So, it’s not surprising that players
were uber-sensitive during this GS and so more likely to argue back. Verbal
abuse penalties should be reserved for just that, abusive language such as
swearing and calling umpires/lines people/officials names. Not merely ranting about unfair treatment. Penalties
are not there for the umpire to use against players when they don’t like their
decisions being called into question. Ramos’s excessive response in deducting a
game and effectively handing the title to Osaka was extreme and shows abuse of
power. This is unacceptable especially given the timing of it. It was also an
historic Grand Slam final and at a pivotal stage of the match. This should be
taken into consideration. The game deduction meant instead of waiting to see if
the match levels at 4-4 all, Osaka is given the opportunity to close out the
match either by breaking Serena’s serve or on her own serve by placing her just
one game away from winning the match (5-3). Even rain breaks are taken at
moments when it is less likely to affect the outcome so penalties are similar.
A rant is not sufficient grounds to gift Osaka the crucial advantage of being
one game away from taking the US Open Grand Slam title. Osaka may have won the match anyway but that is not the point. She played impressive tennis using that whip effect on her ground strokes and serve that I associate with Ostapenko. But she should have been given the opportunity to demonstrate she could beat Serena in that match under fair conditions. We'll never know if Serena would have made a come-back and possibly won her 24th Grand Slam title or whether Osaka was always destined to be the first Japanese Grand Slam winner. So, in a way, there are no winners which is disappointing.
What do we do with coaches and
coaching at Grand Slams? I have always followed the principle that when
stepping on court for a match, a player is on their own. It’s them against
their opponent. That’s what makes it a gladiatorial sport. There’s no place for
coaching during matches. After all, when
a candidate goes into the exam room they don’t have their teacher in the room
with them watching them doing the exam. So why not do the same with tennis
matches? The match is a sort of exam. Practice is over, time to show what you
have learned. That’s why players practise on practice courts. Then compete on
match courts. However, I think this rule that players receive the penalty for
coaching should be amended. The coach should receive the code violation, not
the player. Why should a player be responsible for their coach’s courtside behaviour
and actions during a match? The player is far too busy trying to cope with the
match and win it. The rule is open to abuse against a player if it starts to be
applied against a player irrespective of whether they agree with or participate
in the coaching. Why is a coach’s reputation unaffected? Why does he not have
to take any responsibility for his actions which were entirely and freely of
his own doing?
What this disastrous Grand Slam
shows is that umpires and officials need to update their skills to fit the
modern game and to be able to resolve conflict successfully and efficiently
when it arises in a match. Serena did call up tournament officials to resolve
the issue but their input did nothing to help matters. Tennis has lost its way
and needs to go back to the drawing board and create rules that make sense, that
are logical, are unbiased in description and application, don’t inhibit players
and are respectful of all tennis players no matter what ranking. Sexism, racism,
ageism, homophobia, indeed any discrimination must be stamped out of all sport,
including tennis.
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