Reaping What You Sow

Serena Williams just lost the US Open to Samantha Stosur from Australia. Stosur absolutely deserves credit for the win, and played an incredibly dominant match. She was the only person able to play her own game against Serena throughout this tournament. But this is not about what Samantha Stosur did right, it is about what Serena Williams did wrong.

During the opening game of the second set, after losing the first set 6-2, Serena was serving and facing a break point when she yelled "Come on!" during the point. This resulted in the point being awarded to Stosur, infuriating Williams. She then proceeded to rip into the chair umpire during several breaks between every game.

The commentators made the point that Serena's screaming happens all the time. While this may be true, it was entirely unnecessary to spend every break yelling at the umpire, including calling her different variations of a bad/mean person. One could not help but relive Serena's profanity laced 2009 tirade against the poor line judge that included a facetious threat. Unfortunately, this time around the crowd began to get behind Serena.

I understand getting frustrated at a referee over a bad call for a bit. I don't mind when a crowd boos a bad pass interference call for a play or two. What bothered me was that Serena was constantly berating the umpire, for making what was later confirmed to be the right call. The utter lack of sportsmanship became blatantly apparent after a few games, especially after Stosur maintained graceful composure and maintained her serve throughout the next few games.

It truly felt like karma was smiling on Stosur as she exuded such grace and went on to win her first grand slam final. Equally, it was relieving to see that such outbursts aimed personally at officials are not rewarded in the field of play.