If we could examine Serena Williams’s on-court behaviour at the US Open final in isolation, as a response to one individual umpiring call, this would be a very short discussion. Verbally abusing an official in sport is never OK, it is easy to agree on that.
Most also agree that the offences were punishable by the letter of the law, albeit that the law is not always evenly applied and plenty of luminaries – from Chris Evert to Billie Jean King – have questioned whether the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, could have dialled down the drama with a warning rather than firing shots at the first offence.
The bigger question is whether tennis has a problem with women – and with black women in particular. The frequency with which the sport seems to castigate the sex it took so long to equally recognise and remunerate is alarming. Williams, more often than not, bears the brunt of that. In the last month we have seen Williams’s catsuit banned from the French Open – despite having been designed to support the champion’s postnatal medical needs – and Alizé Cornet punished for an on-court shirt change. Now this.
King duly noted the double standard over a woman’s right to express her frustration on court. Compare the sympathetic or neutral coverage of male players’ transgressions from Roger Federer to Novak Djokovic with the heated debate generated by Williams’s stance. Let’s not forget Dominic Thiem’s multiple racket smashes this season. At the Rome Open in May, the Sky Sports commentary observed: “Broke it in style, didn’t he?” as Thiem violently destroyed his racket. “Not condoning it, but you can understand his frustration.” When Thiem did the same again in the fourth round of the US Open, glowing media headlines focused on the fact that he had given the broken racket to a fan. Why weren’t Williams’s headlines similarly highlighting her redemption after losing her cool? Her vocal insistence that the fans celebrate Naomi Osaka’s win, her arm around the young victor?
Significantly, the attacks on Williams have been personal, her career-long professionalism and suitability as a role model called into question. On the Australian sports discussion programme Offsiders, for example, the panel were unflinching. This wasn’t about Williams breaking on-court rules – this was the dismantling of a reputation.
“People have not stood up to Serena Williams,” said the journalist Caroline Wilson, reminding viewers of her abuse of an official at the US Open semi-final almost a decade ago. Wilson then tore into Williams’s declaration that she was speaking out to help other women, labelling her a sham.
This debate is not merely an abstract discussion of ethics: there are repercussions for these double standards. After the BBC’s Panorama documentary revealed that John McEnroe was paid 10 times more than Martina Navratilova, despite her superior playing record, one of the many justifications cited for the discrepancy was that McEnroe was more entertaining. In other words, McEnroe’s personality – famous for angry outbursts on court – made him a better financial investment.
Nor is this about gender in isolation: the debate is steeped in ‘misogynoir’, the toxic combination of racism and sexism. You have only to watch the US Open press conference footage – highlighted by the director Ava DuVernay – when yet another journalist asked Osaka to explain her Haitian-Japanese heritage, to be reminded of how women of colour have to justify their existence in the sport. “OK, I feel like every single time …” says Osaka, wearily, before proceeding to relay the genealogical and geographical facts of her life again.
For Williams, the context cannot help but inform her frustration. The hypocrisy of the French Open president singling out her catsuit for criticism when the Roland Garros women’s trophy and second court are both named after Suzanne Lenglen, the 1920s French tennis icon who refused to wear conventional apparel. Lenglen argued that corsets and long skirts inhibited women’s athleticism, and shocked audiences as she charged around the court in shorter skirts, an unbridled waist and bare arms. Lest anyone forget, the six-time Wimbledon champion swigged brandy between sets and was vocal about inequality. Why should Lenglen be lauded and Williams maligned?
“Maybe it didn’t work out for me, but it’s going to work out for the next person,” said a tearful Williams in her post-match press conference. The manner in which she raised the issues may not be popular, but future generations of female tennis players will no doubt thank her for throwing down a gauntlet in demanding equal treatment in her sport.
