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I have never understood this equality thing in tennis, women get the same prize money as the men but play less sets. What suprised me about Serena's outburst was the mention she has a daughter, she kept that quiet, oh no my mistake she doesnt stop going on about it.
But Serena hasn't said that she shouldn't get away with it? She verbally abused an official and is raising an issue about sexism. It would be a more focussed discussion if she apologised for her behaviour so the second part can be talked about only.
I bet you there was a thread about Buffon abusing the ref in the recent champions league game. I bet that was in national news.
Are all you saying its sexism purposely missing the facts?
The stats do not back her up
"What do the stats say?
Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam champion, was one of 10 women punished for code violations at this year's US Open, while 26 men were fined.
Most of the fines issued were for racquet violations - 14 men and five women.
Three men and three women were penalised for an audible obscenity, five men were fined for time delays, while four men and one woman were penalised for unsportsmanlike conduct.
I've not looked it up, but I would have thought the Williams sisters have been around the professional tennis scene for the whole of this century and I've not liked either of them from the first time I saw them - I don't like the way either of them play the game (too crash, bang, wallop) and I don't like their on court manner. Now, if I had said that back in 2000, I may have got people disagreeing with my opinion, but I don't think I would have got people accusing me of being a sexist and a racist (two things I never am intentionally) - the world has changed since then though and I'm sure someone would eventually fling those accusations at me in an argument (particularly an online one) now.
Time has made me change my opinion of Venus slightly, but Serena is also a grade A drama queen (there I go being sexist again - show me a term which describes such tendencies as succinctly, but doesn't give the impression that drama queens have to be women and I'll use it). As has been said in this thread already, she has previous for this sort of thing and it wasn't a surprise to wake up on Sunday and hear about her latest on court rantings.
I can remember watching a documentary about Serena two or three years ago, so she must have been well past thirty when it was made and what struck me most was that often she came across as being quite childish. This was a reminder that she is a member of a tennis generation which often included young girls in their early teens who would play in all of the big tournaments - in many cases, it's possible to imagine them not having much of a childhood as pushy parents kept on to them to spend as many of their waking hours on the tennis court as possible.
That's hardly a blueprint for producing well rounded adults and, although she can be an impressive speaker at times, Serena has never struck me as being one of those.
It seems this whole argument blew up because Serena's coach was coaching her during play (something he can do in "ordinary" tournaments apparently, but not in Grand Slam events) . The man has admitted doing this, offering the defence that every one else does it. I've also seen it be claimed that it would have been impossible for Serena to have seen this coaching given where she was stood at the time - they both seem like pretty feeble excuses to me.
The fact that there were no allegations of sexism from Serena on court, but the subject was raised later in her press conference leads, rightly or wrongly, to suggestions that this was a ruse cooked up in the interim to try and justify her behaviour towards an umpire who, as I understand it, may have been strict in his interpretation of the rules, but did not enforce them incorrectly. It's so easy to fling such allegations around these days - sometimes they are justified, but just as often they are used as a kind of smokescreen to deflect from bad behaviour on someone's part and I think that's what's happening here.
Sorry, another double post - I really am going to have to by a new mouse.
I thought her behaviour was a disgrace.
The first warning is controversial as it happens a lot in the game without mention.
From there however she and she alone made a fool of herself and to accuse the umpire of sexism is ridiculous. He should rightly sue for defamation.
If she had left it as a disagreement with the umpire then it would have quickly been forgotten about but by bringing sexism into it she had tarnished his reputation with no real evidence and sparked a wider debate.
Has there ever been a 2 page thread about a white male tennis player losing his temper on here?
I would imagine if Nadal or Federer had acted the same way and been punished the same way then yes.
I'm not sure what your point is. As for the cartoon - are we not allowed to caricature anymore? All caricatures be they newspaper cartoons, comics or spitting image puppets emphasise physical features regardless of race.
Williams and the WTA should be ashamed of themselves. I wonder if it had been a lower ranked women player, would the WTA have defended her?
I hope people get behind the court judge and he sues for deformation. It's about time women were called out for crying sexism when it has nothing to do with it! Bloody wallflower generation.