In a historic matchup, Naomi Osaka beat Serena Williams to win the 2018 US Open.
Osaka won in 6-2, 6-4 sets and is now the first Japanese-Haitian woman to reach the final of a Grand Slam event and win.
The win wasn’t without controversy. Serena broke her racket in frustration and received a thumbs up from her coach and was reprimanded with a coaching violation by the ref.
Jemele Hill on Twitter
The #SoWhatWeNotGoneDo moment of the day, sponsored by @KamalaHarris https://t.co/NKPf3YZPAm
After defending her character as a competitor to the official, she demanded an apology numerous times and then called him a thief. She was then docked a point. Needless to say, the optics here look extremely bad. Serena’s male counterparts historically get more leeway when berating tennis officials and use vocabulary a lot tamer than the word thief.
gifdsports on Twitter
Serena Williams after getting penalized because she called judge a “thief” “There;s a a lot of men who have said things and because they are men nothing happens to them”…. https://t.co/Vr9WTspqFw
It’s a sexist double standard and provides another example of how predominantly white institutions in society want to police, shame, and silence black women for just being. Williams made that point clear in her post-match comments at the presser.
The Shadow League on Twitter
Serena Williams: “This is just an example for the next person that has emotions that wants to express themselves and want to be a strong woman, it didn’t work out for me today but it’s going to work out for the next person.” https://t.co/HYJv1ELzqE
Osaka was just a baby when Serena won her first Grand Slam in 1999 at the US Open, and now her full circle moment with her idol is tarnished.
History was made in Queens on Saturday, but for all the wrong and white reasons.
