Tennis legend Roger Federer has spoken out about Serena Williams’ US Open sexism saga, suggesting the incident could lead to change.
Williams’ accused umpire Carlos Ramos of racism and sexism after her US Open women’s final loss to Japan’s Naomi Osaka, causing divide within tennis as well as with wider sports fans.
In typical Swiss fashion, Federer remained impartial when speaking about the issue to Texas TV station KVUE at a charity event for former rival Andy Roddick.
“It’s interesting but I think it’s important to look at it. Every umpire has their own style, it’s just how it is in any sport,” he said.
“In tennis you might have an umpire that gives more coaching violations and another guy goes more to time violation.
“You might get one guy who knows that this guy misbehaves quite often so I’ll give him a warning quicker or I’ll be more lenient with a guy because he’s a nice guy and just can’t control himself. I think it really depends on the situation.”
The 20-time grand slam winner believed mistakes were made during the match but hoped it wasn’t due to sexism.
“I hope it’s not the case but I think what happened, obviously there were mistakes along the way and there should be more discretion sometimes,” he said.
“At the same time, they have to do their job, that’s what we want them to do. It’s been tricky but a really interesting case to study.”
Earlier this week Williams broke her silence on the drama, doubling down on her sexism call.
In an interview with The Project, which will air in full on Sunday, Williams remained defiant, reiterating her belief that female players are not treated equally to men.
“I just don’t understand… If you’re a female you should be able to do even half of what a guy can do,” she said.
“I can’t sit here and say I wouldn’t say he’s a thief because I thought he took a game from me.
“But I’ve seen other men call other umpires several things.”
Last week Ramos, the umpire at the centre of the controversy, spoke about the issue to Portuguese paper Tribuna Expresso.
Ramos said he stood by his decisions and believed he treated all players equally.
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on that specific day, SW was just totally outclassed in each and every aspect, sport and life skills ....so she THOUGHT the umpire took a game from her and thus justifies calling him a thief, yet when the umpire (THOUGHT) he saw a coaching gesture and merely cautioned her for that, he was suddenly called a thief after her repeated tantrums ....sorry Serena, you may/might have been the best, but this was just plain bad loser/sportsmanship, you wouldn't even acknowledge that the Naomi were the better player on the day("she played well" - wtf !) .... do even half a man can do - yes, you're right, worst case scenario you play 2 sets to win championship as opposed to 5 and yet demand the same pay?.... equality, no sexism - play in the same league male vs female for top honours, not best male/female - best tennisplayer fullstop - that would be no sexism. i'm fed up with all this bs of calling discrimination this discrimination that - LIFE is based on discrimination of all sorts.... grouping & filtering etc etc etc.... I can't call sexism or racism or whatever new term just because i'm not such a hard bargainer as the next guy who earns more than me... all this confidentiality and political correctness caused disparity between equal work equal pay... open it up like the old days everyone knows the pay for the job, proper performance appraisal "promotes" merited individuals and non performers stay put.... easy as that....
Janelle Berner hits it on the head - this 'tennis diva' lost it and then cried 'sexism'. Actually I thought she was beating up on the umpire, even if (as Serena's coach suggested) the 'coaching' warning was unusual. SW would have done much better to say her piece once to the ump, then get back to the business of taking on her opponent, who I thought, simply played way better than SW.