Serena Williams
Photo Credit: Julio Cortez/AP

In Wake of Serena Williams Episode at U.S. Open, Tennis Requires a Hard Look Within

Nearly a week after Serena Williams clashed with chair umpire Carlos Ramos in the late stages of her losing effort in the U.S. Open women’s final, tennis remains roiled by an emotionally charged debate over fundamental fairness in officiating and whether sexism, conscious or not, skews the playing field.

●In Zadar, Croatia, this weekend, Ramos, who issued the penalties that ultimately cost Williams one game in her 6-2, 6-4 loss to Naomi Osaka, returned to work with the backing of the International Tennis Federation, which tapped him to officiate the Davis Cup semifinal between the United States and Croatia.

●On Friday, the London Telegraph published a data analysis of 20 years’ worth of fines at Grand Slam events that undercut Williams’s claim of gender-based bias in officiating. The data showed that men were fined for code violations (which include racket abuse, verbal abuse and other infractions) nearly three times as often as women in Grand Slam events from 1998 to 2018...

To read the full article by Liz Clarke, visit The Washington Post.

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