Look At The Loser

How Serena’s Continued Behaviour Hurts The Game

I was embarrassed today to put on my uniform. I wear tennis whites almost every day as a Director of Tennis and today I wanted to wear something else. I crept around Cumberland Farms as I got my coffee. I am embarrassed to be part of the game I love. I could almost hear people saying: “Do you think he saw what happened at the Open? How dare he wear whites.”

“Look at the loser of the last point” is what they say when you train as a chair umpire for the ATP. “That’s where any issue is going to come from.”  My mentors at the ATP were right this past weekend at the US Open. “And think of the other player when a player starts arguing with you. They are usually ready to play.” Again, the pundits at umpire school were right. I watched as Naomi Osaka stood and waited during each tirade.

The entire time that Serena Williams was arguing with Chair Umpire Carlos Ramos, Naomi Osaka was standing ready to play at her baseline. That’s what I would have been thinking had I been in Ramos’s position. I would have called a time violation if nothing else. But Ramos had his hands full with a player that has done this time and time again when she starts to lose. Look at the loser, they say.

The first code violation and warning from Ramos came at an interesting time. Serena having lost the first set was realizing she was going to struggle against the Osaka serve. Serena is down 15-40 when Ramos sees an exchange between coach and player. Then during the following changeover, she continues to discuss the coaching issue with Ramos. Serena at this point knew she was in trouble with her opponent. Heck, Osaka beat her last time in straight sets. And now she was cruising. And Serena needed coaching - something her coach admitted to live on camera with ESPN. We can go on and one about what her coach might have been trying to say – I personally think it was just what the commentators had said a few points previous: Osaka looked uncomfortable at net. Bring her in.

After this first violation, it calmed a bit. But then we saw the loss of nerve and confidence within a player, and this, as an umpire, is your key to trouble ahead. Serena double faulted back to back points and hands Osaka a break point. Williams was forced to get her serve in and Osaka took full advantage of the easy first serve and won the point. Look at the loser, they say. Ramos was looking at the loser as Williams smashed her racquet on the hard court in Flushing Meadows. It was at that point that Tournament Referee Brian Earley stood up out of his chair in preparation for a possible court visit. He knew more was to come. Unfortunately, he’d seen this all before in his 39 years as Referee.

Breaking your racquet is an automatic code violation. Code Violation number two and a point penalty. By the book and - as I heard Ramos say Code Violation, Raquet Abuse, Mrs. Williams - I thought of the thousands of juniors I have taught over the years and those that I will never teach, most of whom are unable to afford a new Wilson Blade at $199 retail.

Then Osaka broke Williams at 3 all to go up 4-3 in the second set – this was really the end of the match as Serena knew in her heart of hearts she was going to struggle to break Osaka who’s first serve was more effective than her own. The players changed ends. Ramos again looks at the loser. Well Ramos didn’t have to look far – he had Serena chirping at him once again at the chair. Where she went on to call him a thief and liar… at one of the few tournaments where there is a microphone at the chair. We tend to forget that the ATP and WTA don’t allow microphones at the chair, but the ITF does. The ITF runs the Grand Slams, the Olympics and the Davis Cup and really runs only 10 weeks of the year compared to the WTA and the ATP which are the player associations that run the rest of the tour. Players tend to forget this. It’s a different group of officials and a different enforcement of the code, especially when there is a microphone on the chair.

If I could criticize Ramos, I would say that he should have reminded Serena that everything said on court at the US Open is heard by open microphones – which is not usually the case at other tournaments. And if she continued to berate him, he would have to give her a third violation and a game penalty if anything said was against the code. Perhaps he did, but he should have made this point early on. Either way, Serena kept chirping and then arguing and then yelling. The mistake Serena made was to call Ramos a liar and a thief. By the book that is an automatic code violation. The Grand Slam Rulebook, again different from the WTA and ATP rulebooks, defines verbal abuse: “verbal  abuse  is  defined  as  a  statement  about  an official, opponent, sponsor, spectator or other person that  implies  dishonesty or is derogatory, insulting or otherwise abusive." Ramos calls verbal abuse. Game Penalty.

But let’s look at it another way – outside of the tennis world. If Lebron James pointed, waved and wagged a finger for over two minutes at an NBA referee and asked for an apology over 10 times, he’d be thrown out of the game, whether an Eastern Conference game or an NBA Final. If Tom Brady called a Head Referee a liar or a thief and spiked the ball like Serena broke her racquet in anger, he’d be dismissed. If Christiano Rinaldo said to a football referee you will never referee a game of mine again, he’d be shown a red card. Why tennis allows for these tantrums is a question we must deal with as a sport. It’s a sport where a dismissal means the end of the match not just a player reporting to the locker room.

Serena called for the referee and while making her points admitted she knew that the Tournament Referee is unable to change anything that the Chair Umpire has called or done on the court.  Williams knows the rules. She knows the game and she knows how to disrupt it. She knew she was getting coached and she knew she had two code violations. Serena knew what she was doing. She was trying to distract the better player – the 20-year old on the other side of the net who was quietly waiting while we all looked at the loser. And Ramos knew it. He stood up for the game, the code and all which that entails. He called the game penalty. And Osaka, who didn’t really need the help, won with ease.

So, I went to work today in my whites and I just hope that people didn’t look at me and say: Look at the loser who works in tennis. I hope Carlos Ramos had a better day too.

Ed Shanaphy is a former ATP Umpire, Director of Tennis, and President of Beyond The Baselines, a consultancy within the tennis industry. www.beyondthebaselines.com