While Serena Williams was melting down during the U.S. Open women’s final against Naomi Osaka on Saturday night, I was at a minor league baseball playoff game. The home team was losing, 4-3. It was late in the game, but they had rallied. The bases were loaded and then the visiting pitcher balked. It was a pretty obvious balk, the kind that even casual fans notice. But the umpire didn’t call it.
The home team dugout went crazy. The players started shouting, the pitching coach screamed at the ump. And to all of this, the umpire responded by yelling across the field, “I’m not going to walk in a run for that.”
Which made the home team (and crowd) go even crazier. Because the umpire’s response made it clear that he hadn’t missed the balk. He had just decided that, in a situation where calling the balk would have tied the game—an elimination game, by the way—he wasn’t going to apply the rules.
Officiating is, by nature, imperfect. No reasonable person associated with sports should ever demand, or even hope for, perfection from officials. All you can reasonably hope for is that umpires, officials, referees will make the calls to the best of their ability. The question shouldn’t be “Is this the right time to call a balk?” But rather, “Was it a balk or not?”
I offer this as preamble for the U.S. Open Serena Williams Disaster as a reminder that the first question is open and shut: Was Serena Williams being given instruction by her coach during the match?
And the answer here is unequivocal: Yes. Her coach admitted it, explicitly, immediately. Patrick Mouratoglou told ESPN, “I’m honest, I was coaching. I don’t think she looked at me so that’s why she didn’t even think I was.” Case closed. It doesn’t matter if Serena was receiving the coaching. The chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, noticed it. He had to call it.
Is it a balk or not?
The only meaningful case being made for Serena on this issue is the “everybody does it” argument. But this is true in approximately the same way that it’s true that “everyone does pot.” Do lots and lots of coaches coach from the box? Yes. Do all of them do it? No, they do not. The “everyone does it” defense is both beside the point and incorrect.
But the truth is that people are fixating on this initial call as a means to excuse Serena, because it’s the only part of the incident in which it’s possible to portray her, however unconvincingly, as a victim. In everything that followed, she is clearly the bad guy.
Here, courtesy of the Telegraph, is the sequence of events as it unfolded:
* After being broken by her opponent Naomi Osaka to make the score 2-6, 3-2, Williams is given a code violation for smashing her racket in frustration. Coupled with the earlier warning, this brings about a point penalty.
* In response Williams says: “Every time I play here, I have problems. I did not have coaching, I don’t cheat. You need to make an announcement. I have a daughter and I stand for what’s right. You owe me an apology.”
* At the next change of ends at 2-6, 3-4 Williams unleashes a volley of abuse, saying: “For you to attack my character is wrong. You owe me an apology. You will never be on a court with me as long as you live. You are the liar. You owe me an apology. Say it. Say you’re sorry. How dare you insinuate that I was cheating? You stole a point from me. You’re a thief too. “
* Williams is given a game penalty for verbal abuse, making the score 2-6, 3-5. She demands referee Brian Earley come on to the court.
* She says to Earley: “You know my character. This is not right. To lose a game for saying that, it’s not fair. How many other men do things? There’s a lot of men out here who have said a lot of things. It’s because I am a woman, and that’s not right.”
* Osaka holds her nerve to win 6-2, 6-4 for first major title.
* Williams refuses to shake Ramos’s hand and demands an apology.
Demanding that the official make an announcement during the match proclaiming a player’s innocence? AYFKM? That’s nothing short of insane. Bad calls happen all the time. They’ve happened before, they’ll happen again. Even if this had been a bad call—and again, it was not—Serena’s response is . . . well, let’s just call it unreasonable, and leave it at that.
Now if this had been Venus Williams—one of the classiest and most gracious players of her generation—you might be able to read the sequence as an aberration, a moment where a player, in the heat of battle, was finally pushed over the line. Maybe she was wrong, but it’s just a one-off.
But if you read it in the context of Serena’s career, you see it for what it is: bullying.
Serena has a history of lashing out in big matches when she’s getting beaten by inferior players. In 2009, Serena was getting worked by Kim Clijsters in the semis at the U.S. Open when she got called for a foot fault—again, the call itself was correct. She exploded in a tirade against the (female) line judge that included a physical threat. It has to be seen to be believed:
In the 2011 finals at the U.S. Open, Serena was getting beat by Sam Stosur when she yelled in the middle of a point. The chair umpire called interference—again, correctly—and Serena exploded at her, saying “Aren’t you the one who screwed me over last time? Are you coming after me? That is totally not cool . . . Don’t even look at me. You’re a hater. You’re very unattractive inside.”
In two of the three incidents, the supposedly wicked officials were women. In all three of them, Serena lost in straight sets to players who aren’t even close to her league. Seen in this context, Serena’s Saturday night outburst looks less like a “strong woman” being abused by an overreaching, sexist official and more like a bully trying to build an alibi for herself as she’s losing a big match.
I am, admittedly, an anti-Serenite. I was always Team Venus and I’ve never liked Serena’s drama-queen-bee approach, or, to be honest, the aesthetics of her game. That said, she’s undeniably one of the two greatest women’s players, ever, and I’d probably argue that she’s the women’s GOAT. Not only that, but she basically took off from 2003 to 2006. So get your head around this: If Serena had been singularly focused on tennis for her entire, amazing, run, she’d probably have 30 slams right now. Thirty. That’s how great she is.
In addition to this, I have always admired the fact that Serena (and her sister) steadfastly refused to be cast as victims of racial bias, even though the tennis establishment has tried for 20 years to push them into that role.
And Serena’s right about one thing: She’s not a cheater. Whatever her flaws, Serena’s no Justine Henin.
But she isn’t the good guy here, either. Which is fine. Not every great athlete is a babyface. Some of them are heels. (Perhaps you’ve heard of Ty Cobb.)
The best you can say about Serena’s meltdown last night is that it wasn’t quite as bad as some of her other meltdowns. Which is to say that Serena Williams isn’t a victim of anything except being Serena Williams.
