The Rules, as They Apply to Serena

“Well, she DID break the rules,” some people are saying.

This past Saturday, Serena Williams was penalized in ways that were unprecedented for a Grand Slam final. Some want to spin the narrative that technically Serena deserved what she got. That is an oversimplification that needs more careful thought.

Her first warning for coaching was justified, technically, by the fact that her coach was indeed gesturing for her to go to the net. Set aside for now the fact that men are rarely, if ever, called for similar behavior. Her second infraction, resulting in a point deduction, was for smashing her racket. She did. The Grand Slam rulebook defines “verbal abuse” as any statement about an official that “implies dishonesty or is derogatory, insulting or otherwise abusive.” So for her third infraction -- calling Ramos a “liar” and a “thief” -- she technically broke that rule resulting in a game deduction late in the second set.

What people need to acknowledge is how sexism and racism lurk beneath these oversimplifications; sexism and racism love technicalities. Ramos did not technically say “Woman, how dare you speak that way to me,” before stealing a point and then a game from Serena. Technically he was just officiating.

But, what about the men? The men, technically, deserve those deductions for code violations as well. They just don’t get them. They don’t get them despite throwing f-bombs along with their rackets.

In a Washington Post op-ed tennis legend Billy Jean King asks a rhetorical question: “Did Ramos treat Williams differently than male players have been treated?” The consensus is that he did. “Ultimately,” King continues, “a woman was penalized for standing up for herself.”

People who are focused exclusively on Williams’ behavior are missing the point. The point is not that she lost her cool and verbally vented her frustration. The point is she was not treated like the men on the tour who have lost their cool and verbally (often much more aggressively) vented their frustration.

As King pointed out in a tweet, “When a woman is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalized for it. When a man does the same, he’s ‘outspoken’ and there are no such repercussions...” These semantics speak to the obvious double standard at play on that court and all over our society.

“Well, she DID break the rules,” people reiterate. “Yes, but which rules?” I wonder.

When people say that Serena broke the rules, we must remind them that beyond the technical rules, she broke more subtle ones: women should be polite; women should be deferential; women should just control their emotions; white men hold the power.

“Ramos took what began as a minor infraction,” writes Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post, “and turned it into one of the nastiest and most emotional controversies in the history of tennis, all because he couldn’t take a woman speaking sharply to him.”

In an interview with ESPN the next day, Katrina Adams - president of the USTA, said, “We have to have consistency, because when you look at what the women, in this case Serena, is feeling, we watch the guys do this all the time. They are badgering the chair umpires on the changeover. Nothing happens.”

“There should be no difference,” says WTA chief executive Steve Simon, “in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men vs. women and [we are] committed to working with the sport to ensure that all players are treated the same. We do not believe that this was done last night.”

As an interesting juxtaposition, we have Nick Kyrgios. Playing in the men’s draw of this same tournament he started to have a bit of an emotional meltdown in his match against Pierre Hugues Herbert. Instead of penalties, the chair umpire, Mohamed Layhani, came down from his chair and calmed him down. “I want to help you,” he said. Kyrgios went on to rally and win the match.

Lahani and Ramos broke the cardinal rule of officiating sports by making it about them. There are two players in a tennis match, and they made it so there were three. Still, the intrusion into the men’s match had a sense of brotherhood, one man helping another. In the women’s match there was a sense of chastisement, one man putting a woman in her place.

Serena will never have that chance to rally and win. She was robbed of it by Carlos Ramos, just as Naomi Osaka was robbed of the joy of her first Grand Slam title. The blame cannot fall on Serena for an emotional outburst similar to those we see in countless sporting events. The blame is on a system that views an emotional outburst from a woman as different from that of a man.

Which rules were the cause for her unprecedented in-match discipline? The rules of tennis, or the rules of history?

Gillian White writes in The Atlantic, “To see Williams’s comeback after a traumatic birth stymied over seemingly minor infractions seems unnecessary and malicious. To see the devastation that those penalties wrought on two women of color at the top of their sport, during what should have been a joyous time, is heartbreaking.”

This is not just about one call or one match. It is about systems of power that still hold back women and people of color. Serena has spoken for years about the double standards that impact her as a woman of color playing this game. At the U.S. Open alone she has been the recipient of outlandish calls in 2004 against Jennifer Capriati, and even more egregious calls in 2009 against Kim Clijsters. Analysts questioned those calls when they happened. Serena still questions them today.

Serena’s outburst on the court can’t be looked at in the isolation of one match. To do so would be like analyzing the Black Lives Matter movement without acknowledging the police brutality of the civil rights movement or slavery. Williams has a history that she brings with her to each match.

She and her sister Venus were frequently heckled and taunted as they first entered the tour because of their race. Serena has faced excessive scrutiny of her body type that men would never face. After wearing a form-fitting bodysuit to the French Open, officials took the unprecedented step of banning her clothing in future matches. Serena said that black suit made her feel like a “warrior princess.”

It appears the officials don’t like the image of her as a warrior, or as a princess. “One must respect the game and the place,” a male spokesman said explaining the ban. Even when that openly disrespects the women playing it by applying archaic concepts of modesty to a modern game.

Toby Oredein, writing for the UK’s Independent, sums it up best. “Some have been quick to say,” she writes, “that Williams’ confrontation with Ramos was because she is a sore loser and a bully; typical knee-jerk criticism that comes from the stereotype of the angry black woman. However, this lazy assumption ignores [the facts].”

I am a middle-aged white guy, so technically this isn’t my problem. Still, I am angry. I am troubled by the obvious double standard. I am saddened that I could not watch the greatest tennis champion of all time try to fight her way back into the match.

“She DID break the rules,” people say. Yes, she did, and like countless other women and people of color, she has been punished.