Australian Open facing huge decision on Serena Williams and umpire
Serena Williams’ claim that Carlos Ramos will never umpire one of her matches again may actually come true.
According to a new report from The Guardian, Serena and the umpire at the centre of her US Open meltdown are ‘likely to be kept apart’ at the Australian Open.
NOT HAPPY: Serena’s husband lashes out at ‘misleading’ sexism article
However it might be entirely up to Ramos.
Given that the Portuguese official is employed by the International Tennis Federation and doesn’t umpire the WTA circuit, the next time he will cross paths with Williams will be January’s grand slam in Melbourne.
According to The Guardian, Tennis Australia has avoided making a call yet on whether or not Ramos will be in the chair for any of Serena’s matches.
But former professional umpire Richard Ings reckons Ramos is likely to put in a request that he not be.
“Say an umpire has a tough match with a player,” Ings told the Observer.
“The player is angry, blames the umpire, says ‘you will never work a match again’.
“It is obvious that if the umpire does that player in the next match or next week that there will be a problem.
“So the umpire will simply take a break from umpiring that player.”
And Ramos might do exactly that at Melbourne Park.
“When the pro umpire arrives at a tournament they update the supervisor if there are any players they are having a break from,” he continued.
“May be none or one or two, whatever. And the supervisor schedules other qualified umpires that week for those matches.”
Ramos issues Serena-style violation to male player
Ramos made headlines again on Sunday night, but this time American fans were praising him.
The umpire issued a code violation to Croatia after Marin Cilic slammed his racquet to the clay and mangled the frame during his Davis Cup loss to Sam Querrey.
The moment would not have made headlines under normal circumstances, but given the fact that Ramos hit Serena with a similar penalty at the US Open, it caused somewhat of a stir.
Ramos gave Serena three code violations in her straight-sets loss to Naomi Osaka (on-court coaching, racquet abuse and verbal abuse), prompting her to accuse the umpire of sexism.
Serena breaks silence, refuses to back down
Discussing her meltdown in a preview clip on The Sunday Project, the 23-time grand slam champion insisted she did not receive help from coach Patrick Mouratoglou.
Williams said of Mouratoglou: “He said he made a motion, I don’t understand what he was talking about. We’ve never had signals.”
Serena also refused to backtrack on her sexism claims.
“I just don’t understand,” she said. “If you’re a female you should be able to do, even half, of what a guy can do.”
The full interview is set to be aired next Sunday.
