Serena Williams - Has Only Herself to Blame

In response to:


http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/tennis/serena-williams-us-open-controversy-comes-down-to-these-two-questions/ar-BBN6f6F?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=DELLDHP17


"This happens to me all of the time here!" wailed Serena Williams as she was given code of conduct penalties.  Serena has played at the U.S. Open since 1998.  She has had 4 incidents in which she thought she was wronged.  In that same time period, she has won 6 U.S. Open titles.


So, to state that she has had bad things happen to her "all of the time" is ridiculous.  If you play 20+ years, you are going to have 4 rough calls that you think are against you.


What do all of Serena's incidents have in common?  1) They occur when she is struggling or feels she is going to possibly lose.  2) They are made far worse than they need to be by her subsequent behavior.


In her 2018 incident, Serena's coach is called for illegal coaching. She says he never coached her.  He says he always coaches her illegally, but it is a rule that is never called.  So this is sort of like an offensive lineman arguing that he wasn't holding and his coach saying, "Of course he was holding, that is how we teach them to block - it is never called."


Now, let's assume that we can trust Serena's coach and he was coaching but it is never called.  What occurs here is basically like LeBron James early in a Finals game being called for a touch foul when guarding a guy out front.  It is either a bad call or a call that is just never made.  LeBron now has two choices - he can either lose his mind or he can say "Geez, come on" and adjust his play accordingly.  I'd strongly suggest option #2.


Asked after the match whether the chair umpire and she had run-ins in the past, Serena said no.  She said the umpire had actually done many of her matches and performed quite well.  Therefore, based upon her own words, she has no reason to suspect person bias or animus against her.  What happened is you had a good referee make a bad call against you. 


Serena is struggling with Naomi Osaka.  Serena is concerned she is going to lose.  She makes a bad shot.  She then absolutely crushes her racket. This is, 100% of the time, a code violation.  The refs will look the other way if you just skim the ground or abuse the racket a little.  If you crush it and break the frame, that is a code violation 100% of the time.  Serena now loses a point.


This is where things get weird.  Serena thinks it should be a warning.  No - you got the coaching warning for your warning, this is now a point.  WHAT!?!?  I got a coaching warning?  Look, if you got a coaching warning; that was the time to contest that issue.  Now that you have lost a point, you suddenly feel offended?  "I have a kid.  I don't cheat."  Huh?  What sort of claim/statement is that?  I know a lot of players with a lot of kids.  Many of those players cheat.


But now Serena (again, who is losing) suddenly sees the world is against her.  She demands an apology.
This is sort of like LeBron in my example above walking up to the ref in the 3rd quarter after foul #4 and saying, "You owe me an apology for foul #1.  Remember back them?  I don't cheat; I have three kids."  That sort of exchange would be unthinkable.  But Serena is losing; she is melting down; the world is against her.  She oddly pulls out the "I am a mom" argument.


The chair umpire, unsurprisingly, fails to provide the requested apology.  This further angers Serena.  Now she sees a vast conspiracy against her to deny her the title she wants.  But we know at this point that Serena has two conduct violations; this is basically playing with four fouls.  This is not the time to tempt fate.  Serena now pushes her chips all in, "You are a thief.  You stole a point from me."


Now, I have played a lot of sports and coached a lot of sports.  I have had CONSTANT problems with officials.  All of the time. You want to know what "all of the time" is?  Basically every game.  I don't care for officials, and I generally think they don't do a great job.  That said, the general thing I would do in these situations is complain and complain and complain and then if the official told me to shut up, I'd shut up.  I only have ever received two technical fouls.  I have complained to referees 5,000+ times.


And I can tell you this - other than swearing at an official, the one thing they do NOT like is if you question their integrity.  You can get away with saying a call was awful or hurt your club or saying "how can you possibly miss that?"  What you cannot get away with - stuff like "Call it both ways" and "We all know who is supposed to win here."  They do NOT appreciate that.  And for good reason.  As a general rule, they are trying.  They may be bad, but they are trying.  So if you state or imply that they are dishonest or biased, you're treading on very thin ice.  If you call someone a mother-fucker or say they suck, that, in a way, is better than saying/implying that they are cheating against you. 


Against that background, Serena should have known that she shouldn't have impugned the integrity of the umpire.  The umpire in that situation now has been called a thief - dishonest, biased.  He now has three options - 1) pretend he didn't hear it; 2) issue what James Blake calls a "soft warning" (hey, don't say that again); or 3) give a code violation (1 game penalty).


Now, since the whole thing is being recorded and the sound amplified, it is hard to do #1, particularly when Serena has been in your face about it already and demanded that you apologize for trying to do your job.  If you do #2, you know what happens?  Serena says, "Yeah?  Well, you're a thief." and after the match she says "He baited me!  I was just minding my own business and he knew I was upset and he baited me!"  The chair umpire, eschewing these two worse options, did #3.


Now, the defenses of Serena are:


 (A) She was treated unfairly because she is a woman. McEnroe did basically the same thing in a 1990 Australian Open match that he was LEADING in, and he was straight out defaulted. 


Since Serena's opponent was, herself, a woman, it is a miracle that she somehow was able to abide by the conduct rules during such an unfair, anti-woman job of refereeing.  Yet, like Michael Scott, Somehow She Managed.


It really does a huge disservice to women to claim that when a ref doesn't officiate as you want that he is somehow anti-woman.  That sort of claim actually sets women back and separates them from men in a negative manner.  I saw Anthony Davis get ejected from an NBA game last year.  He deserved it.  I wanted to watch him play, but he was gone; straight tossed.  But he deserved it.  He felt he was getting a raw deal and he said too much. Why should Serena get a pass because she is a woman? 




(B)   She should have been treated differently because she was Serena.  Um, what do people CONSTANTLY bitch about with the NBA?  Star players getting star treatment.  Look, there is no evidence this umpire hated her.  She herself said she'd never had any issues with him.  So what the umpire was supposed to do (if we assume the coaching call was wrong) was spend the remainder of the match ignoring further violations?  Because she is Serena Williams?  I mean, wow.  Come on.




(C) Tennis has always rewarded bad behavior.  What I found most amusing about this defense is that it refers to incidents back in 1977-87 to state that this has always been the case in tennis.



As someone who was around back in 1977-87, I can assure you that there were multiple calls in the media and elsewhere to outright ban McEnroe for his tantrums.  Conners was given a little more leeway since people liked him more, but certainly no one in the media ever stood up and said, "Geez, that John McEnroe/Ilie Nastase, we really admire them!  Good for them for sticking up for themselves!"


(It should be noted here that McEnroe's dysfunction was really a terrible anger management problem.  It made no difference whether he was winning or losing, he was just a dick on the court.  If he were up 5-0, 30-love and the linesman missed a call, he'd lose his mind.  (See his default at Aussie 1990, where he was actually ahead).  Similarly, being hopelessly behind didn't calm him either.  McEnroe viewed a missed call as a personal affront, thus rendering the time or circumstances of the call irrelevant.  McEnroe lobbied endlessly for instant replay, way back in the late 70s early 80s. 


In any event, since McEnroe's last Grand Slam win in 1984, 34 years ago, who have been the non-Serena standard bearers for tennis?  Lendl was constantly carping about calls, but he never really did anything that caused a scene (he was once given a misconduct warning by an umpire who explained that "3 hours of constant bitching and moaning, even without profanity, adds up to a warning") Sampras (deadly boring, hardly spoke), Agassi (flashy and trash talking to his opponent, did some complaining but certainly not anywhere near McEnroe's class),  Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray.  Absolutely none of these guys is known as someone who constantly confronts umpires.  Djokovic and Nadal can be a tad whiny when things don't go their way, but they push the envelope VERY little.  Federer, as a general rule, doesn't even like to challenge obvious missed calls.


On the women's side, Navratilova could be a little testy, but Evert was not, Graf was not, Seles was not,  Hingis was not, Clijsters was not, Henin was not.  So, again, we have to harken back 35 years to find someone who is a star tennis player who is a problem or who is "glorified" for abusive behavior.


This defense of Serena is apparently that Serena's behavior could have been a LOT worse.  OK, granted. Roberto Alomar once spit on an umpire and he is now in the Hall of Fame.  So what?  Serena reached the point where she should have known under any reasonable review of the situation that she should have kept quiet.  She did not.  When you reach that point as an athlete, you are playing with fire and you might get burned.  She got burned. 


If Serena really felt she had to call the umpire a "thief" to "stand up for what she believed in (which is a ridiculous position to take), then she should be ecstatic that she was sanctioned for it.  You really cannot have it both ways.  If I go into court as a lawyer and get so screwed over by a judge that I say, "Your honor, you are corrupt," then I better mean it and I better be willing to go to jail for contempt.  If, instead, I just don't like that I lost and I just am blowing off steam and saying something to make myself feel better, I then have............only myself to blame.