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13 minutes ago, Pete said:

The Washington Post take is worthwhile only for the writer's breathless assertion that Serena lost one of her "last bids for all-time greatness" thanks to Ramos. World #1 8 times, 39 Grand Slam titles (23 singles), hundreds of tournament wins, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ...

I knew before clicking it would be by Sally “Lance Armstrong caddie” Jenkins.

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For what it worth (and that's not a lot) he claims it's not offensive or anything because he did the same thing for Nick Kyrgios

 

I think he could have gone with "oh, it's okay, I'm Australian" to equal effect.  

(Which - to be clear - is none.)

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2 minutes ago, ReiseReise said:

No, this shit is seriously racist bs and doesn't belong anywhere near 21st century thinking. It is also not how I tried to claim the incident went down. 

I really think the thing that is being missed here is how relatively tame her "tirade" was.  She clearly was upset, but she's more respectful to that dude than most people would be in the situation.  There is a good chance that she couldn't even hear the coaching she was getting, and even if she could that wasn't really something she could control.  She didn't ask for coaching, her coach was probably just reacting emotionally because she was getting her ass kicked.  The amount of punishment she received was more over the top than how she addressed the referee.  

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Can't we just agree that everyone in this situation, save Osaka, is awful?

Institutionalized sexism and racism means that women, doubly so black women, in all walks of life, can't stand up for themselves the way men are allowed to.  And that fucking sucks.   A man can be an aggressive, bullying prick at a job and be hailed as a go-getter and a straight shooter.  A woman does it and she's a horrible cunt. 

At the same time, Serena has reacted this way a few times before and probably only did so to this extent because she was losing.  This is the second time she's trotted out the "I have  a kid" defense as some sort of shield against accusations of wrongdoing, which is awful (she used it against doping accusations a little while back).  Having a kid and being shitty aren't mutually exclusive.  And now she's doubling down and claiming she's fighting for women's rights, which probably gets more of a side eye than "I have kids!" 

It's a shitty system she's in, and she reacted poorly.  The judge was a jerk and so was she.

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Serena’s actions at other events are part of the broader context of the story. Anyone who has watched her career knows she can be a really bad loser. 

But the even bigger contest is garbage like those cartoons. And it makes you realize that, yes, Serena  has so much against her, still, despite being the GOAT and that explains at least a part of what happened Sunday. I could very easily see why she would feel that she was being called out for something just for being Serena Williams after realizing how much she has to carry. 

I still think she should have been penalized the third time because she was making really ridiculous demands for an umpire to essentially humble himself before her on top of calling a guy a thief. But... yeah. 

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24 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

Serena’s actions at other events are part of the broader context of the story. Anyone who has watched her career knows she can be a really bad loser. 

 

You don't get to be as good as her at anything without being a terrible loser.  For the most part, anyone who gets to the top of their game athletically all claim to hate losing more than they enjoy winning.  I remember how people acted like Cam Newton should have stood there and calmly answered questions after they lost the Super Bowl.  He stood up there, looking like he was fighting back tears,  having a real emotional moment and we killed him for it.  Would we rather him be some sort of emotionless robot who can put every feeling he has in words at that moment, or should we have empathy for a guy who may have just lost his only chance at a championship?  People are emotional, and sometimes that emotion spills over in messy ways.  I'd rather we have real people showing their real emotions than all these cliche spouting robots that we seem to be holding up as examples.

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43 minutes ago, supremebve said:

You don't get to be as good as her at anything without being a terrible loser.  For the most part, anyone who gets to the top of their game athletically all claim to hate losing more than they enjoy winning.  I remember how people acted like Cam Newton should have stood there and calmly answered questions after they lost the Super Bowl.  He stood up there, looking like he was fighting back tears,  having a real emotional moment and we killed him for it.  Would we rather him be some sort of emotionless robot who can put every feeling he has in words at that moment, or should we have empathy for a guy who may have just lost his only chance at a championship?  People are emotional, and sometimes that emotion spills over in messy ways.  I'd rather we have real people showing their real emotions than all these cliche spouting robots that we seem to be holding up as examples.

I do agree with all of that. I know people will point to Federer as an example but the guy is sort of a snooze. 

That is why this Serena thing is so fascinating. I am really glad this happened. There is so much to talk about. 

But I do think there is a different reaction between being emotional after a loss and threatening to shove a tennis ball down the throat of a line judge for calling a foot fault really late in a match. Like... what is going to happen after saying that? No male player would get away with saying that, either.

One point to make with the McEnroe and Jimmy Connors comparisons: Those guys were absolutely NOT beloved by the tennis world at the time. The advantage they had in terms of press favoritism was that they were Americans. And even that was dubious. Connors became a fan favorite during his big run I. ‘91. McEnroe became an elder statesman type and an announcer for his “honest” takes. But neither were held up as heroes, at least in my memory. And both had plenty of penalties issued against them. McEnroe got tossed from the Aussie Open for being a dick.

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1 hour ago, Greggulator said:

But I do think there is a different reaction between being emotional after a loss and threatening to shove a tennis ball down the throat of a line judge for calling a foot fault really late in a match. Like... what is going to happen after saying that? No male player would get away with saying that, either.

 

Yeah, that's the distinction I'm making here...I'm cool with Cam not wanting to do press after the biggest loss of his career.  He didn't insult or threaten anyone, promise they'd never ref a game of his ever again, or cite his kids as evidence of being beyond reproach. 

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Let's not forget that Serena was *NOT* penalized for her tirade against the umpire initially.  She went after him, walked away, and then came back and went at him again.  And called him names ("liar", "thief") and ordered him to humiliate himself in front of her (with an apology over the microphone).  And NONE of this was heat of the moment.  Were she arguing about the coaching thing right after it happened, she'd have more of a beef.  She wasn't.  It would also be easier to give her some slack if there was some doubt over whether the coaching happened.  There isn't any.  Her coach admitted it, she admitted looking at him, and there's video showing she did.  

Was she targeted because of her gender and/or race?  I don't know.  I don't think so but that's a conversation worth having.  I think she just ran into an umpire who's tighter than some (re:coaching).  I mean, he gave an "abuse" warning to Djokovic for faking like he'd hit a tennis ball at him.  Didn't do it, just faked it.  IMHO, the 2nd and 3rd violations were absolute no-brainers.  And those are 100% on Serena.

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Everything I've seen on social media and in the news has put the blame on the ump.  I follow a lot of sports reporters,  I saw a segment on MSNBC,  I saw several segments on ESPN and they have all said that Serena handled the situation with "class" and that the ump was in the wrong and that the same ump has had issues with other players.  During the MSNBC segment it was said that male players get away with a lot more than what Serena was saying and the ump's do nothing to them.  

Again, this is what I've seen reported.  It sounds like a lot of you have a different take on this.  I don't know enough about the rules of tennis to know whether the ump was out of line. 

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7 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Everything I've seen on social media and in the news has put the blame on the ump.  I follow a lot of sports reporters,  I saw a segment on MSNBC,  I saw several segments on ESPN and they have all said that Serena handled the situation with "class" and that the ump was in the wrong and that the same ump has had issues with other players.  During the MSNBC segment it was said that male players get away with a lot more than what Serena was saying and the ump's do nothing to them.  

Again, this is what I've seen reported.  It sounds like a lot of you have a different take on this.  I don't know enough about the rules of tennis to know whether the ump was out of line. 

 I think I know why you're getting that particular take.

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8 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

They could very well be politicizing the issue but I'm sure FOX had some interesting takes as well.  

They probably do.  They probably line up with the shit cartoon the Austrailian drew.  That's the hard part, outlets are gonna politiicize an incident like this, so you kinda have to do the leg work and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

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4 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Can't we just agree that everyone in this situation, save Osaka, is awful?

Institutionalized sexism and racism means that women, doubly so black women, in all walks of life, can't stand up for themselves the way men are allowed to.  And that fucking sucks.   A man can be an aggressive, bullying prick at a job and be hailed as a go-getter and a straight shooter.  A woman does it and she's a horrible cunt. 

At the same time, Serena has reacted this way a few times before and probably only did so to this extent because she was losing.  This is the second time she's trotted out the "I have  a kid" defense as some sort of shield against accusations of wrongdoing, which is awful (she used it against doping accusations a little while back).  Having a kid and being shitty aren't mutually exclusive.  And now she's doubling down and claiming she's fighting for women's rights, which probably gets more of a side eye than "I have kids!" 

It's a shitty system she's in, and she reacted poorly.  The judge was a jerk and so was she.

It happens on this very board. 

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One of Fox’s big goals is convincing white people that racism and sexism aren’t real problems while old Mellon money continues to pour into eugenics think tanks. I’m sure I know what their line on this is.

Reflective of nothing in this thread but rather the conversation in general, I don’t trust the motives and world views of people who wouldn’t normally discuss tennis who’re jumping into the mix and loudly proclaiming the total absence of sexism and racism. 

If the sun could explode already and put us all out of our misery, that’d be great. 

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