Advertisement

US Open to avoid meeting between Serena Williams and Carlos Ramos following 'ugliest' ever conclusion to final

The final was described as 'the ugliest finish in grand-slam history' - USA Today Sports
The final was described as 'the ugliest finish in grand-slam history' - USA Today Sports

US Open officials said on Friday that Serena Williams had not made a formal request for chair umpire Carlos Ramos to be kept away from her matches over the coming ­fortnight. Yet they have still ­decided to separate the two for the benefit of the tournament.

Last year’s final turned into what a recent ESPN documentary ­described as “the ugliest finish in grand-slam history” after Ramos ­issued Williams with three code violations, prompting the partisan New York crowd to boo the ­victorious Naomi Osaka when she stepped up to the presentation dais.

During the match, Williams wagged her finger at Ramos during one of the changeovers and said: “You will never, ever, ever be on another court of mine as long as you live.”

But Williams has not repeated this instruction since, according to Stacey Allaster – the United States Tennis Association’s chief executive for professional tennis. When the subject was raised on Friday, Allaster said: “No, the request has not come in. This is our collective decision. We want to focus on the competition.”

Naomi Osaka, left, of Japan, is hugged by Serena Williams - Credit: AP
The partisan New York crowd booed the ­victorious Naomi Osaka Credit: AP

Further clarification was offered by Soeren Friemel, the German who has taken over as tournament referee this season from Brian Earley. Asked whether it was a dubious for tennis to keep certain umpires away from players who have an ­issue with them, Friemel said: “We have the best officials at the 2019 US Open, so there is some flexibility.

“It is not the first time we have made the decision that’s good for the tournament, good for the players, good for the umpire as well,” Friemel said. “In the end, our goal is to assign the best chair umpire for the right match.”

Umpiring “holidays” – as they are known in the referee’s office – are a familiar part of tennis’s peculiar ecosystem, even if they are rarely mentioned. The argument usually advanced by officials such as ­Friemel is that no one benefits from starting a match with pre-existing tensions between a certain official and player, and that the two parties can perhaps be reintroduced to each other after a lengthy cooling-off period.

One unusually high-profile case emerged before the 2015 French Open, when Telegraph Sport reported that Rafael Nadal had asked not to be umpired by Carlos Bernardes ­after a row in Rio three months ­earlier. “Yes, it was my request,” Nadal later confirmed. “I consider him [Bernardes] a great umpire and a good person, but I think when you have some troubles with the same umpire, sometimes it’s easy to stay for a while away, no?”

To return to this year’s US Open, Allaster and her colleagues have made a number of changes in an ­effort to avoid a repeat of last year’s unpleasant scenes. After a two-and-a-half-day summit in Lake Nona in March, the USTA decided that the crowd might have been less hostile to Ramos – and to first-time major champion Osaka – if they had ­understood the escalating nature of code violations: a warning for the first, a point penalty for the second, a game penalty for the third and disqualification for the fourth.

Instead, the impression of the ­angry spectators was that Ramos was penalising Williams on an ­arbitrary basis. “It was clear fans didn’t understand the rules, and that’s on us,” Allaster told the New York Times.

The scoreboards have thus been reprogrammed ahead of this year’s event so that they will flash up details of code violations as they are announced by umpires – a simple solution that, surprisingly, has never been used before in professional tennis. There will also be an official on hand for the live broadcasters, ready to explain any controversial decisions for the benefit of a wider audience.

Roger Federer with the runners up trophy after losing the final  - Credit: REUTERS
Roger Federer spoke on Friday about the aftermath of the Wimbledon 2019 final Credit: REUTERS

Meanwhile, Roger Federer spoke on Friday about the aftermath of last month’s dramatic Wimbledon final, which he lost to Novak Djokovic in the first deciding-set tie-break played at Wimbledon.

“I struggled a little bit the first couple of days,” said Federer. “At the same time, I was caravanning with my kids. I didn’t have that much time thinking about all the missed opportunities. I was setting up tables and organising my life for my four children, driving around the beautiful countryside in Switzerland.

“Sometimes you have flashbacks, things like, ‘Oh, I could have done that, I should have done that’. The next day you’re having a glass of wine with your wife thinking, ‘The semis was pretty good, even the finals was pretty good.’ You go in phases.

“It took me maybe a couple of days just to get those things out of the system, Overall, I’m very happy I was part of such an entertaining match.

“Somebody had to win. Novak was the better man on the day. He was tough. I was just more upset rather than being sad. I think being upset made me get over that finals much easier than being sad, dwelling over it too much.”