Arena Federer/Nadal/Djokovic Era - Now 1/3rd Over

BBC News is saying that Serena has been fined $17,000 for yesterday.

 

she was fined $10k for the incident in 2009.

 

i'll be rooting for delpo today, but i really just hope these guys can be at their best and end this tournament on a high note.

 

this is some fantastic stuff.

 

Djokovic just a bit better, but what a second set.

 

one of the better straight sets matches i've seen. djokovic to me looks to be back at his absolute peak.

 

dodging fed was pretty lucky, but i have little doubt that novak would have won that match. i'm equally confident that he would have beaten nadal. even though he did really struggle with the heat, i think he's physically on the rise while the other top players are feeling the effects of a long season. he will be number one again really soon. it's almost starting to feel greedy at this point, but it looks likely that we will get at least one more year with these three great champions all still fighting for majors. the idea that novak could be the one who ends up with the most majors of all suddenly seems plausible again.

 

As spectators, we're incredibly lucky to have seen these three men for fifteen years. Their competition, though? They probably didn't enjoy it that much

 

I am gutted for Del Potro. Such a good guy who deserves a comeback slam. Especially sad that he lost to Djokovic, who sorry is an unrepentant sexist pig.

 

On the Serena topic, I don’t watch as much tennis as you guys but I have literally never seen someone being given a game penalty. Not in a first round game let alone a grand slam final. The umpire was frankly being ridiculous. She didn’t swear at him, and it’s true that others have gotten away with far worse. Serena didn’t react well at all granted but she definitely has a point. If they want to really cut down what players say to umpires then it needs to be clearly communicated, and applied across the board from all umpires.

 

that wasn't the issue to me. i mean yes, i have seen players get away with tantrums that were just as bad and berating the ump. but i have also seen plenty of players get warnings for doing the same, which is what you get for a first violation. so the point is she was definitely walking the line of what could be considered a violation, and it was a line she shouldn't have been walking when she already had two code violations. that was the thing i had never seen before. the reason you nearly never see anyone given a game penalty is because you never see someone still behaving like that when they are on the verge of being given a game penalty. i also don't think "she was behaving badly, but others have gotten away with behaving worse" is a super strong argument.

 

It may be by the book, but it's still unusual. If you never enforce things that way then suddenly do in a final, it's going to rigthly be criticized. Freaking Nick Kyrgios hasn't ever been given a game penalty to my knowledge. Normally you also only get penalized for dissent if you swear at a ref or threatent them.

These are the reasons I feel sexism played a role. I think the ref was trying to show that he is a big boy who can punish the mouthy lady all he wants, because she needs to be more polite and proper.

 

kyrgios has been suspended eight weeks for throwing a match and 28 days for screaming obscenities at stan wawrinka. he also quit a match after being given a point penalty, in addition to his countless fines. but yeah, i'm actually not sure if he's been given a game penalty either.

edit: but to the point, for me the coaching violation was definitely unusual and i personally wish it wasn't called and then probably most of the later histrionics would have been avoided. but after that violation most of the unusual behavior came from serena. the racket abuse violation was totally standard, and i'm not sure how long the umpire was supposed to put up with her endless tirades. to keep behaving like that when you have two violations is a really hard thing to defend imo.

edit2: pretty balanced take here

 

Seriously?

The umpire did his job correctly and professionally.

 

Give me an example of a game penalty being enforced outside of this.

 

the only example i can think of where a player continued to berate an ump after two violations was mcenroe at the australian open in 1990 and in that case the ump called it a forfeit and awarded the entire match to his opponent.

 

Ramos is known as a stickler for the rule book:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...s-serena-williams-penalty-us-open/1263930002/

"During the 2016 Olympics, Ramos issued a code violation to Andy Murray after thinking Murray had called Ramos “stupid.’’ Murray later claimed he said “stupid umpiring,’’ not “stupid umpire.”During a fourth-round match at the 2017 French Open, Rafael Nadal lost a first serve after Ramos issued a code violation for Nadal taking too much time. Nadal later fired back, saying Ramos would “never chair another of his matches again.”In July at Wimbledon, Ramos issued Novak Djokovic a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct because Djokovic threw his racket to the ground."

And to me it's the job of the player in this case Serena to know that. To me it is no different then a baseball player studying the strike zone of a particular zone to see how big (or small) it is or a boxer who studies a ref when it comes to how quickly they break a clench and stuff. It is all part of the game conditions that a player must prepare for.

 

Halep ends year at No. 1.