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Serena Williams furious after being assessed game and point penalties

September 8, 2018
by Larry Brown
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Serena Williams

Serena Williams umpire

Serena Williams was furious with chair umpire Carlos Ramos after being assessed a penalty point and later game during the second set of her match against Naomi Osaka in the US Open finals on Saturday.

Williams smashed her racquet after being broken by Osaka to make it 3-2 in the second set.

The violation for smashing her racquet combined with her previous coaching violation meant that Williams was assessed a penalty point. She learned of the penalty when Osaka went to serve down 2-3 in the second set and the score was announced as 15-0. Williams was furious about being hit with a penalty point and went off on Ramos:

Williams then insisted to Ramos that she didn’t receive coaching earlier in the match and demanded an apology. Her yelling at Ramos did not help. Ramos did not change his mind, while Williams was clearly rattled and lost her focus. Osaka held serve at love and then broke Williams on her serve to take a 4-3 lead in the second set.

Serena continued to berate Ramos during the side change and was hit with a third violation for verbal abuse, which made it a game penalty and turned the score to 5-3. She called him a “thief” for stealing a point away.

Osaka went on to win the set 6-4 and capture the match for her first grand slam title. Williams meanwhile accused Ramos of sexism for penalizing her for her verbal abuse, saying male players get away with so much worse.

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