I have some strong feelings about this and need to chime in.
By way of background, I have played competitive tennis since I was a kid. My over 40 USTA team is playing in the Sectional championship (one step from National Championship) next weekend. I probably know more about this than most casual fans.
First, you have to understand the warning/penalty structure (many fans do not). The system goes: warning, point penalty, game penalty, match penalty (i.e. foreit). The latter is VERY rate but if does happen (see Jeff Tarango, Wimbledon 1995, MacEnroe at the Aussie Open, etc).
As a player, if you know that you’ve gotten a warning, you HAVE to walk on eggshells. Maybe you give the chair a piece of your mind if you think it will somehow help you later (although these days with replay, the chair is generally less important, so this is a poor strategy). But on this stage you cannot do anything dumb.
Serena got the first violation (a warning, with no penalty) for coaching. This rule needs to be re-examined, but as written, players cannot receive any coaching (including hand signals) during a match. (an aside: my opinion is that players should be able to receive coaching between sets, but coaches should be off court (watching on TV) during the match). It is widely known that coaches signal players during matches and usually nothing is done. Her coach admitted to coaching her, meaning that as the rule is written, the first violation (warning) was legit. I have no idea why the chair decided to issue a warning for this (maybe the hand signals were particularly egregious; maybe this is a pet peeve of his; I don’t know). BUT (and this is a big BUT), his issuing this warning had ZERO impact on the match. There was no penalty associated with this warning.
Serena seemed to come somewhat unhinged after this because she was accused of cheating. Her coach admitted to cheating, so I really don’t know why she was so offended by this. It’s obviously not plausible that she has not idea her coach is giving her signals. So she’s full of crap with the whole “I’d rather lose than cheat” bit.
But again, this warning had ZERO impact on the match.
At this point, she had to realize that she had to be on her best behavior because her next violation would result in a point penalty. She smashed a racket. Perhaps if she hadn’t already gotten a violation, or perhaps if this was an early round match, maybe she gets away with that. But from the chair umpires perspective, this is disrespectful to him. She should know she’s on this ice and she smashed a racket. So she SHOULD have seen that violation coming, which resulted in a point penalty.
Realistically, that point penalty probably had very little impact on the match. But she wouldn’t let it go and decided it would be a good idea to verbally harass the chair on the next changeover. Why? After you get a point penalty, you have to realize that the ref is not kidding around (right or wrong) and you need to basically ignore him/her for the rest of the match. You need to be on your best behavior. She was ranting about being owed an apology and wouldn’t let it drop.
The baseball equivalent of this is not letting a bad call go and keep talking to the umpire. Even if you don’t swear at him, eventually, if you keep running your mouth you will get tossed. Can you imagine repeatedly telling the home plate umpire that they owe you an apology and not getting tossed? She wouldn’t shut up and (IMHO) didn’t give the chair much option. It was stupid of her to engage him at that time (after two violations).
Some have speculated that Serena didn’t know that the coaching violation was a warning that counted toward a point penalty. If she didn’t, that’s really, really ignorant. But even if she didn’t, as soon as she got the racket abuse point penalty, she knew it. So she needed to STFU at that point. She didn’t. Which means she someone thinks she is bigger than the game. She’s not and the chair put her in her place.
I used to like Serena early in her career. I like her less and less as time goes on. She has had multiple outbursts at the US Open alone (foot fault issue, hindrance issue and this one), for which she was in the wrong in all of them, but somehow tries to make herself the victim. She made things orders of magnitude worse in this instance by trying to make this a gender/sexism issue. She also tried to play the “mom” card by invoking her daughter while arguing with the chair. The issue was she tried to show up the chair and it failed.
She’s an uber talented player, but her ego gets in the way. This was 100% preventable by her. All she has to do is shut her mouth. Although I believe that she loses anyway. Osaka played really, really well. If you want to feel bad for anyone, feel bad for Osaka. Her amazing win is tarnished by Serena’s nonsense.
