Sexism and Tennis
Over the weekend, social media blew up following what occurred at the Women’s Final of the U.S. Open. However, this isn’t the first time gender or sexism has been the main topic of discussion in the tennis world. A few weeks back, Alize Cornet was issued a code violation for taking off her shirt during a break. During that break, she went and changed her shirt, but when she came back onto the court, it was on the wrong way so she took it off, and fixed it. Male players change their shirts all the time. And some times, during the change over, men will sit there without their shirt on without receiving a penalty or fine. These instances highlight some of the recent happenings involving sexism and tennis.
Last Saturday, Serena Williams took on 20 year old Naomi Osaka in the U.S. Open Final. In a match that left both crying during the after match celebration, it was filled with lots of controversy. During the 2nd set of their match, chair umpire Carlos Ramos handed Serena a violation that her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, gave her hand signals to help her from the stands above the playing surface. After that penalty, Serena then smashed her racket, then while sitting down talking to Ramos, she was issued a game penalty for quote ‘verbal abuse’ after calling Ramos a ‘thief’. Williams then took the world by storm at her press conference by saying “I’m here fighting for women’s rights and for women’s equality and for all kinds of stuff. For me to say ‘thief’ and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark”.
Now, in the beginning when this started to unfold I took Ramos’ side because it is obviously a case of cheating. However, the more this blew up, Ramos definitely could’ve handled it better by giving her a warning to be quiet instead of issuing her a game penalty right away. People make mistakes, but this definitely could’ve been handled a lot differently. Although he is receiving praise for the way this was handled, I believe there should be training for something like this if it does happen again so it is handled the right way.
I side with Serena on this. As I was watching this match, I was completely mind blown that this is actually happening. Coaches are seen doing “coaching techniques” all the time and television. I have no idea how Ramos saw Serena look up at her box and see her coach point out those tips. Men never get caught or fined for this type of stuff. The World Tennis Association needs to look at this very carefully and make sure this doesn’t happen again. Oh, and Serena was fined $17,000 for her “actions” during this. A slap on the wrist for the greatest athlete when it comes to women’s sports.
