The US open and Serena Williams debacle
The US Open 2018 was held in New York City from 27th August to 9th September. The men’s singles event was won by Novak Djokovic of and the women’s singles event was won by Naomi Osaka of Japan
For Japan this victory is momentous as Naomi is the first Japanese woman to bag this title but the way the events unfolded the match became memorable for all the wrong reasons.
During the game, Williams received 3 code violations. The issue started when during the second set, chair umpire Carlos Ramos gave Williams a code violation for a signal sent from her coach. Serena, claims that she was unaware of the signal, however coach later agreed to giving a coaching signal. Serena lashed out the umpire saying, “I don’t cheat to win, I’d rather lose.” and “You owe me an apology.” Her second violation was smashing her tennis racket on the court after a mistake, which is considered as racket abuse. This is all too familiar for Serena as she has done this many times in the past.She got a penalty point for this. This increased the dispute between her and the umpire. She later even called him a “liar” and a “thief”. This cost her a game penalty. Ultimately Naomi Osaka defeated Serena Williams 6-2, 6-4.
This was the most bizarre tennis game with rants, jeers and tears. During the trophy presentation, Naomi Osaka, all of 20 years, started crying, and covered her face to hide the emotion. They did not seem to be tears of joy, even though she had beaten her childhood idol. The crowd booed, not at her, but because they felt that the umpires were unjust towards Serena Williams, as since the beginning they had expected the American Williams to win. Whoever won the final, it was tennis that lost.
You can watch Serena’s out burst here
