The highly anticipated 2018 US Open once again delivered from a world class action exciting, drama and controversy perspective. The women’s final teased at being one of the greats between the amazing Serena who was aiming to surpass Margret Courts 22 Grand Slam wins record and one of, if not the best young and upcoming NextGen stars Naomi Osaka who was contesting her first Grand Slam final. However, the final failed to produce an Arthur Ashe stadium final epic Osaka’s amazing win was spoiled, distracted from and tarred by a highly agitated Serena, who was struggling to raise her level at the time and eventually lost her cool thrashing her racquet, which she received a code violation for,

The situation became worse as she was then reprimanded for receiving on court coaching, losing another point and the resulting arguing with the umpire and officials, who had now arrived on court to try and resolve the situation, ended up deciding Serena had committed another offence relating to verbally abusing the umpire by calling him a thief and this resulted in the harshest violation I’ve ever witnessed in professional tennis, a whole game violation deduction.

Serena is the leading figure in women’s tennis and she is also strong enough in herself to stand up and speak out about many tennis and social related issues, and according to her post tournament interviews she felt aggrieved and discriminated against, comparing similar situations in the men’s game that occur more frequently but are dealt with in a far less severe way compared to this situation. Whatever the outcome from the situation there must be more equality and consistency between umpires in managing ATP and WTA games and an understanding, especially where players are clearly in a high state of stress, when handing out warnings and code violations.

The men’s final was costed by tournament favourite and sixth seed Djokovic who was aiming to win a fourteenth Grand Slam and a third US Open against third seed and 2009 US Open winner Del Potro and by the time you read this article I expect Del Potro will have been crowned champion.

Just a reminder there is no ATP Tennis tournament this week due to the Davis Cup quarter finals, which commence on Friday.

Selections:

None.