On Wednesday, September 5th Serena Williams was going for her seventh US Open singles victory, but after a spout between her and the chair umpire, Serena was penalized an entire game during this argument.
Over the past couple of weeks, there have been many people advocating their support for both Serena Williams and Carlos Ramos, the chair umpire whom Serena argued with. Ramos was called a thief and a sexist during the fight and has had several groups agree with Serena. Officials with both the Women’s Tennis Association and the United States Tennis Association have expressed their agreement with the accusations that Ramos handled the situation unprofessionally.
However, Ramos has received equal backing and support from the International Tennis Federation who stated, “His decisions were in accordance with the relevant rules” and “He acted with professionalism and integrity.” Ramos has also been supported by several other empires who feel Ramos was “left out to dry” for 48 hours before anyone defended him for doing his job. Major contributors to the debate and discussion have been split into two groups current athletes and past athletes and commentators. Martina Navratilova, tennis legend, put in the New York Times that Williams should have shown “respect for the sport we love so deeply.” While Steph Curry said in an interview that Serena acted with class and integrity handling the aggressive umpire.
This incident has brought back out the popular talk that umpires should form their own union and boycott Serena Williams matches. Many umpires are scared about what might have happened if they were the ones on that chair taking that level of verbal abuse what would have happened to their careers. The major support that many people have been giving out is because Ramos is such an experienced and respected official people know that Ramos would not make decisions like this based on gender, race, or any other factor like that Another major reason that refs are looking to unionize because referees are not allowed to speak to media. If referees are not allowed to speak to media and everyone that is accusing them of stuff is how are refs supposed to defend themselves for the decisions they make. This is a common problem among all sports referees are not able to talk to the media tennis is just the first sport that would have refs that are not held to the same restrictions that other refs are held to. Allowing them to defend themselves. This could be a potential move through all sports if it works out. Refs have commonly been the most attacked group of people that no matter what they decide to do people have problems with it. That won’t change with this union but for a situation like this with sexism being at the point of the argument Ramos deserves a chance to defend his point and why he made his decision.
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