Sports

Serena Williams remorseful about U.S. Open incident

Per Second NewsNovember 25, 20181 Mins read1.1k

Tennis champ Serena Williams graces the cover of GQ’s annual “Men of the Year” issue and in the interview, she recalls her spar with the U.S. Open chair umpire at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York, where she lost to Naomi Osaka after an altercation that made international headlines.

Williams calls her experience at the U.S. Open a “trigger moment.” According to the publication, she feels remorseful about the incident with chair umpire Carlos Ramos, in which she argued with him about a second “coaching” code violation and demanded an apology.

“There are men out here that do a lot worse, but because I’m a woman, because I’m a woman, you’re going to take this away from me?” she told him after receiving a third violation for arguing.

I think a person can be a little bit more sensitive to anything in that moment,” Williams told GQ. “You know, it becomes a trigger moment. When you go through a really extreme ordeal not once, not twice, not three times, it becomes a trigger moment.”

Many on Twitter noted how differently the situation would have been handled if she were a man in the same situation disagreeing with a call.

“Especially a Black woman,” Williams said in the GQ profile. “You do research on how Black women, you know, in the workforce are, there’s literally papers about it, how black women are treated if they’re angry, as opposed to white women, white men, Black men. It is bottom of the bottom of the totem pole.”