Serena Williams
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US Open final ending was rough, filled with controversy. There have been lot of reaction all over then place by fans, sports media, current and former players.
This was a game where Serena was comprehensively beaten at her own game by a much younger player who won her 1st grand slam. Serena seemed visibly frustrated.
Serena said that she was fighting for women’s rights and sexism. She said that she is a victim.
What do folks on this board think?
Was Serena a victim?
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I think Serena was acting like a child and deserves some kind of suspension.
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I don’t think she was a victim, per se. I think other players have been given a longer leash than she was given in that match, but she let it get to her and affect her play.
I certainly don’t think she should be suspended when the enforcement of those penalties is so inconsistent. She lost. Perhaps a fine for criticizing the ump (similar to what other sports due for criticizing officials in post game), but that would be it.
It’s like technical fouls in basketball. Some players and coaches get a T for saying one word, while other players or coaches can scream at a referee for two or three possessions without drawing a T. Unless there was some sort of consistent enforcement, it would be unfair to further penalize someone with a suspension.
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Serena is a sore loser. Always has been and probably always will be. As I said in the other thread she was getting beat soundly and then threw a tantrum to avert that.
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Wasn’t Serena playing a woman? Gotta adjust to the judges/refs.
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When after being correctly warned you tell the umpire:
“You owe me an apology. I have never cheated in my life. I have a daughter and I stand for what is right.”
“You are attacking my character and you owe me an apology. You are a liar. You will never umpire on a court of mine as long as you live. Give me my apology. You stole a point from me and you’re a thief too.”
You cannot possibly think there will not be consequences and she was also assessed a $17k fine afterwards. From this article…
Everything that followed is on Williams, who is no stranger to tantrums. Most famously, she was tossed from the US Open in 2009 after telling the line judge, “I swear to God I’ll take the f—king ball and shove it down your f—king throat.” John McEnroe was taken aback. Even Williams’s mother, Oracene Price, couldn’t defend her daughter’s outburst.
“She could have kept her cool,” Price said.
More importantly, the way Osaka was treated was disgraceful.
At the awards ceremony, Osaka covered her face with her black visor and cried. The crowd booed her. Katrina Adams, chairman and president of the USTA, opened the awards ceremony by denigrating the winner and lionizing Williams — whose ego, if anything, needs piercing.
“Perhaps it’s not the finish we were looking for today,” Adams said, “but Serena, you are a champion of all champions.” Addressing the crowd, Adams added, “This mama is a role model and respected by all.”
What exactly does being a mother has to do with tennis or the issue at hand? What would be the reaction if a man uses the same argument?
Now comparing what men and women get away with is a straw man argument. Men do not play women in singles and as long as both players are being treated the same way and the rules are enforce fairly the issues is moot; for perfect equality maybe women should start playing 3 out of 5 instead of 2 out of 3 sets. This the equivalent of comparing refereeing in the NBA and the WNBA, the men’s game is more physical and thus a more physical games is allowed. If fouls are being called unequally (see most Duke’s games) then I see a problem but if both teams are being called equally there is much less of an issue.
I know a few will claim I am anti-women even when it is not the case and I suggest you read the article by Martina Navratilova I posted earlier which very thoughtfully goes over the events and dispels some of the inequality myths.
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That Ref is a hardass (and has been in the past). She was being a petulant child and took away what should have been a great moment from Osaka who legitimately kicked her ass. Straight sets and neither set was close.
Serena’s coach said he was coaching her. Straight up said he was. And did it blatantly enough that the ref noticed and felt it deserved a penalty.
Serena then SMASHED HER RACKET later in the match. Costing herself the point. The Ref didn’t make her smash her racket. And then to take that frustration out on Ramos, who doesn’t take shit from anyone in Tennis, is her fault again. He has put Murray, Venus, Nadal and Djokovic in their places as well. He is a hardass.
This wasn’t sexism. Her claims that it is sexism makes me like her so much less. This was Serena getting her ass kicked and trying to use her Stardom to intimidate the ref and her opponent because she knew that was the only way Osaka wasn’t going to kick her ass. It didn’t work and now Serena is crying foul.
Osaka has at least handled this very gracefully.
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One more bit of nformation…Williams = Nike, Osaka = Adidas.
Cue in Jaybate with his conspiracy theory du jour.
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Audemars Piguet, Chase, Beats Electronics, Wilson Sporting Goods, Gatorade, Intel, and Nike can all vouch that Serena is a class act!
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Fwiw, I do like Serena a lot. Fantastic Role Model. Or at least it appears from an outsider’s perspective. But she needs to be called out for this B.S.
What mainly pisses me off is just her stealing a moment from Osaka. Who earned the right to enjoy every second of her victory and have the tennis spotlight on her for a week.
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@Kcmatt7 I’m sure you could elaborate with noble things she’s done off the court that I’m probably unaware of, but I am inclined to disagree with you when you say she’s a fantastic role model. As a professional athlete, your primary platform is on the field / court. You can get larger than that obviously, but first and foremost, your behavior on the court will be what the largest audience sees, and as a role model, what the largest number of people will model behavior after.
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USTA Refs respond: http://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/24644514/tennis-officials-shaken-lack-support-chair-umpire-carlos-ramos
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Just as a note, after the match, Serena was telling the crowd to stop booing to allow Osaka her moment. A lot of people were upset at how the match went in that moment, but Serena was not a poor sport in the aftermath. She got carried away with her competitive side during the match, but did not disrespect Osaka afterwards.
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Charles Barkley reputedly spit on a little girl.
Ron Behagen reputedly beat Luke Witte to a bloody pulp.
Ron Artest reputedly went up into the stands to assault a fan.
What Serena did is nothing!!
John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors in tennis and Billy Martin and Earl Weaver literally built careers and fortunes on being dicks to umpires and refs.
Serena seems the first woman with the kind of physical strength and presence typical of most great male athletes.
When Serena gets mad, apparently folks don’t think of her as a “angry bitch.” They think of her as an “angry man with a front hole, “ as is the latest politically correct term for vagina.
I think it’s great she took on the refs, like a man, because she plays tennis like a man IMHO. THAT’S A COMPLIMENT, Serena!!!
I also hope she gets fined like a man and gets some grief for her uncivil outburst, the way Connors, McEnroe and Nastasi used to (though they never got enough IMHO).
Serena has proven women exist that can take women’s sports to the next physical level. It’s only logical that she would take competitiveness to the next level psychologically and emotionally.
She is a pioneer of physical, emotional and psychological competitiveness and the frontier in sports always includes physical, emotional and psychological intimidation of opposing players and refs.
It ain’t pretty in women, and it ain’t handsome in men. It’s ugly and vulgar in both.
But competitive sport is about using all the advantages available to win.
She was apparently doing that show of intimidation for the next contest.
I just hope she has to pay the piper for doing it, same as I wish for Coach K to pay the piper when he appears to coach XTREme Cheap Shotting or snarls at a red. Heck most men’s basketball coaches appear to verbally abuse refs each game than Serena appeared to do in her match!
But life isn’t fair and sometimes persons that cross the line don’t get justice.
How much justice Serena gets will likely depend on how crucial she is to the profitability of women’s professional tennis. That’s how it has always worked in men’s sports.
Ty Cobb was pretty important to baseball. He never got much justice for filing his cleats into weapons for second base slides.
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I respectfully disagree. Her actions throughout the match were disrespectful to Osaka. When you tell the umpire…you are stealing points from me… by extension implies he was favoring her opponent with is extremely disrespectful to the opponent who was soundly beating her. Keep in mind that Osaka had beaten Serena previously and Serena could not stomach being schooled…again…by a 20 year old.
Here is snippet from the article above…
Osaka accepted her trophy while choking back tears. She never smiled. When asked if her childhood dream of playing against Williams matched the reality, she politely sidestepped the question.
“I’m sorry,” Osaka said. “I know that everyone was cheering for her and I’m sorry it had to end like this.”
She turned to Williams. “I’m really grateful I was able to play with you,” Osaka said. “Thank you.” She bowed her head to Williams, and Williams just took it — no reciprocation, no emotion.
Now, that is class and it does not sound like she was very impressed with Serena’s behavior.
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Serena’s big problem is avoiding becoming Sonny Liston to Osaka’s Cassius Clay (later and better known as Ali)
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@jaybate-1.0 Ron Artest is your most recent comp though, and that was 14 years ago. Also, I’m pretty sure if a tennis player jumped into the stands and beat a fan they’d be banned for life, even in 2004.
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@JayHawkFanToo These lines you quoted are from a spin news source it seems, NY Post, i.e. Rupert Murdoch. I haven’t seen the ceremony afterward, so not sure I trust the source on anything except assuming that the quotes they extracted to fit their narrative were accurate.
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approxinfinity said:
@jaybate-1.0 Ron Artest is your most recent comp though, and that was 14 years ago. Also, I’m pretty sure if a tennis player jumped into the stands and beat a fan they’d be banned for life, even in 2004.
Yeah, I didn’t try to get contempo, because the country seems to have PRed a lot of aggression out of the public eye the last 15 years. Until the Me Too and Pedo stuff the last year, the PR guys had pretty well convinced people these assholes running movie studios and networks etc. had gotten the message of our culture wanting some more civility, but NOooooooooo.
People don’t seem to understand that we are living in a huge PR and mind control matrix more than a media-high matrix. Media and high tech are just the delivery and interface systems. PR and Mind Control are “how” they they operate on us.
My hunch is Serena has acted this way many times (she’s human after all), but her willingness to get political has changed the ability of her handlers to conceal it. It used to be there was enough money to be made airbrushing her outbursts. Now there are players that stand to make hay in the mid terms by outing her outbursts.
I was writing previously about a long term tendency to view women’s outbursts as “emotion” and a more recent socially engineered repackage women’s outbursts as aggression. As a social engineering strategist trying to break down the social order that private oligarchy, as a tiny minority of, is so fearful of self organizing against the private oligarchy, you might logically among other things take a crack at repackaging women’s gender roles and anger outbursts from “emoting” to “aggression” to attempt to break down gender roles and perceptions of team into victim and victimizer to break down the legacy order that perhaps obstructs private oligarchic agendas in this or that situation.
Hence, we have women super heroes and now ordinary women protagonists in movies and TV running around routinely kicking men’s asses, etc. We saw the same thing done to male protagonists the last half of the 20th Century. The hero evolves from a reasonable, law abiding pillar of a just order to an alienated, victim engaging in vigilante acts essentially indistinguishable from villains, but for the ends used as justification of the means. We have substituted Kill Bill and others for Charles Bronson’s and Clint Eastwood’s revengers. Many applaud this as “progress” for women, and it is in one way, same as Django Unchained is progress for blacks. Blacks and women now get to behave onfilm as abominably as white Jewish men and white Christian men have. It’s only entertainment, right? Only the truly naive believe that media entertainment has no weaponized dimension. Basically, if any group will consent to be a victim pitted against an “other” OTHER THAN the actual private oligarchy, then it gets the virtual fantasy freedom to sadistically slaughter “evil doers” portrayed as oppressive to its victim group, and NOT organize with fellow human beings to bring fair pursuit of life, liberty and freedom for all, as well as NOT requiring the recently rapacious private oligarchy to re-subordinate to the US Constitution.
To stay unsubordinated from the constitution, the private oligarchy more or less HAS to find and exploit various divisive ways to break down among other things the old male-female roles to keep women and men from standing together and bottom-up organizing to resist the more inequitable and anti-Democratic aspects of the private oligarchy’s preferred NWO agenda. It’s simple really. There were bad aspects of the legacy order of men’s and women’s roles. Emphasize those bad aspects in controlled politics and controlled media; then incentivize anyone willing to break them down without replacing them with a new vision of men and women working together to re-subordinate the private oligarchy to the constitution and rule of law and separation of powers.
The 1 % has to divide (and keep divided) the 99% to not be stopped in pursuit of their agendas injurious to the 99%, or worse subjected to due process, or perhaps worse still, be hung by angry mobs as has happened so many times in history.
Divide and conquer is hardly new to war and politics. Sadly, it seems more a rule than an exception. Read British strategist Halford MacKinder’s recipe for western strategy in Eurasia and you will quickly appreciate the legacy of this strategic approach. But I digress.
Serena, regardless of the great person and athlete that she appears to be, seems useful as a media symbol to different axes of private oligarchy apparently fighting for control of the seemingly inexorable transformation of the USA order in this context of apparent systematic divide and conquer strategy.
But because she can be used as brand symbol to help break down old orders, her brand symbol can also be weaponized by others as another kind of brand symbol to redirect this break down of old orders in other directions she might not wish or intend.
The great movie director Elia Kazan got caught in this sort of predicament (loyal American smeared as a communist in youth at a time that meant black listing in Hollywood, then counter smeared for naming names because he had come to oppose communism) and it finally destroyed his brilliant career. TPTB will apparently gladly destroy great performers, in most any field, if it will further a private oligarchic agenda.
I feel bad for Serena, because she is attempting to use her brand symbol in service of her political values—a honorable thing for a free American to do, but she is learning she has very little control over her brand symbol once persons interested in appropriating and destroying it start in on her.
This is the current terrible double edge of PR (dating back to the early 20th Century work of Edward Bernays) and Mind Control (dating back at least to KOREAN WAR war “brainwashing” of American POWs by North Koreans reputedly trained by USSR and Red Chinese operatives using some nasty techniques likely earlier developed by Nazis, perhaps even secretly by Brits and American researchers). There have reputedly been great strides made in mind control the last half century or so and some of the advances have reputedly trickled down into use in our country. It appears a particularly risky time for abuse of mind control techniques many places in the world and USA appears no exception.
Hence, when you alone are paying to shape the brand symbol, it is great. But when someone else starts paying to shape it, it can quickly and powerfully spin out of your control.
To master the obvious, Serena is a great talent. Like many unprecedentedly great athletes, she reawakens in us all the great potential of human beings. She brings hope simply by playing to the best of her very great abilities. Some are model persons, others not. She seems pretty darned decent to me from the remote outside looking in. I hope she can overcome this problem in her path.
But many great talents never survive this sort of situation. For every Ali that prevailed in a serious PR-mind control war over his/her brand symbol, there seem to be far more Elia Kazans and Orson Welles that cannot ever regain control of their careers. Heck, General Douglas MacArthur got on the wrong side of the brand symbol warfare machine and even one our wiliest military strategists got hopelessly outmaneuvered by it.
Good luck, Serena.
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The video is widely available and the lines were taken verbatim; you can always find it and verify…maybe Jaybate can help you with that.
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@JayHawkFanToo I’m not disputing the quotes. I’m saying that whatever they have to say about stonefaces, and whatever they’re omitting, or whatever narrative they’re selling i’m completely uninterested. Rupert Murdoch and his spin rags are dead to me.
I may even see the situation the same way. But I don’t want to be fed an opinion.
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The overseas press pretty much agrees with the article I posted, the MSM here is more interested in the political, women’s rights, she is a mother now angle and naturally overlooking the bad parts. Again, watch the video and draw your own conclusions.
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I like Serena! I don’t watch enough tennis now to see if there is equal treatment. But I do remember the McEnroe days, and she doesn’t hold a candle to him. I also thought he made tennis a lil more fun to watch, I like the bad boys!
lol. I saw some guy player tweet that he has done the same thing and has never been called on it. I don’t watch enough to know. It does sound like the coaches all do it, so why don’t they change it? That one call started it all. I did think Serena tried to honor the winner. I know Serena has been drug tested a record # of times and also not allowed to wear outfits that were medically designed for her blood clotting problem. I hope she gets over this and comes back, not sure if she might not be one of the best athletes of all times.
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approxinfinity said:
@JayHawkFanToo I’m not disputing the quotes. I’m saying that whatever they have to say about stonefaces, and whatever they’re omitting, or whatever narrative they’re selling i’m completely uninterested. Rupert Murdoch and his spin rags are dead to me.
I may even see the situation the same way. But I don’t want to be fed an opinion.
Would this editorial from the New York Times be better?
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@JayHawkFanToo I like it better. Thank you. I realize that my perspective may seem frivolous. This is why particularly the words chosen to illustrate the exchange in The Post piece matter to me. When they describe the character of Williams in that passage, they omit that in that ceremony, Serena did appear to show emotion and praise to Osaka. They only describe her as stone faced, showing no emotion toward Osaka.
I still think she’s a horrible sport on the court and I don’t agree with justifying her actions as her being an activist for women’s rights; I don’t agree that it is appropriate to threaten line judges or call them liars and thieves. I think these things are rediculous.
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@jaybate-1.0 Your argument that the 1% is disrupting male and female archetypes to divide the 99% is fascinating, and that Serena, being the embodiment of a new female archetype, is being used by larger forces. I don’t know that I buy that a conscious effort to divide is present here, but I do think market disruption is key to private sector.
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“mind control matrix”
lmao
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Only jaybate, rappers and potheads know the TRUTHS about America and the world.
An actual private oligarchy and NWO drop. This is peak insanity errr JB.
Edit: I’ll stop now this was just too juicy!
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approxinfinity said:
I may even see the situation the same way. But I don’t want to be fed an opinion.
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OPININION FEEDING might be a good name for it. It appears one of many trickle down techniques from intelligence propaganda and psy-ops techniques that have apparently been used so much that many ordinary persons appear essentially conditioned to think its a valid form of logical assertion. They appear to both engage in it as a means of persuasion and also accept it as a means of persuasion.
It’s quite bizarre really.
It is essentially “stove piping” edited hooey to anyone gullible enough to accept it and couching it in a fallacy of an argument premised on an appeal to authority.
There appears a reason why logic was stripped from much education.
Once the American public was reputedly systematically dumbed down with apparently intentionally de-logic-ed by education technique, and since 9/11, near 24/7 MSM propaganda, this sort of use of edited reality and appeal to authority as “explanation” is much easier to pass off as a truth.
And since it’s done by talking heads on the MSM endlessly it’s virtually normalized and in time mindlessly imitated by many.
It has been fascinating to watch it unfold in an unfortunately apparently controlled way during my life time.
But humanity is resilient and will get beyond it somehow.
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@jaybate-1-0 I just found this guy on the interwebs, inspired by your post. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/frank-breslin
Frank Breslin is a retired high-school teacher with 40 years of experience in the New Jersey public school system, where he taught English, Latin, German, and social studies.
Now I am well aware that huffingtonpost can veer wildly left in their stories. This guy appears to have been given wide berth and is apolitical in what I’ve read; so far so good. In particular, I plan to read the following, having read the first and a browsed a handful of others (you’ll see them if you scroll down)
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JayHawkFanToo said:
The video is widely available and the lines were taken verbatim; you can always find it and verify…maybe Jaybate can help you with that.
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Nope.
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jaybate 1.0 said:
JayHawkFanToo said:
The video is widely available and the lines were taken verbatim; you can always find it and verify…maybe Jaybate can help you with that.
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Nope.
So, you did not check this >>> LINK <<< I suggested?
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JayHawkFanToo said:
jaybate 1.0 said:
JayHawkFanToo said:
The video is widely available and the lines were taken verbatim; you can always find it and verify…maybe Jaybate can help you with that.
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Nope.
So, you did not check this >>> LINK <<< I suggested?
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Why would one “check” an unexplained link to an unstated source?
Rock Chalk!
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approxinfinity said:
@jaybate-1-0 I just found this guy on the interwebs, inspired by your post. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/frank-breslin
Frank Breslin is a retired high-school teacher with 40 years of experience in the New Jersey public school system, where he taught English, Latin, German, and social studies.
Now I am well aware that huffingtonpost can veer wildly left in their stories. This guy appears to have been given wide berth and is apolitical in what I’ve read; so far so good. In particular, I plan to read the following, having read the first and a browsed a handful of others (you’ll see them if you scroll down)
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Thx for sharing the link. I hope persons will read much about this issue. There are many facets to it that relate to the current situation.
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Knowledge is power, and ignorance is bliss.
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She told Ellen:
“She said that she was proud of me and that I should know that the crowd wasn’t booing at me. So, I was really happy that she said that.”
