The whole fiasco has people divided as much as the net on the court where it began separates players annually. Serena Williams excoriated the umpire at the U. S. Open women's singles final for penalising her multiple times. And then Aussie cartoonist Mark Knight produced a parody of her which she and many others have condemned as racist and sexist. Now, I'm on the fence about her meltdown; I found her manner excessive and she clearly broke at least one game rule but several of the points she raised seemed accurate to me. Regarding the cartoon, all I have to say is that cartoonists, particularly newspaper ones like Knight, are meant to push buttons even if only to help their papers sell, and button-pushing is brave whatever content is involved. (I honestly can understand where both sides are coming from on this cartoon.)
But who I sympathise most with here is Naomi Osaka. 20 years old, multiracial, winning her first Grand Slam title and yet, everybody will remember that win of hers because of Williams' behaviour and Knight's ensuing cartoon. In fairness to Serena she did nothing wrong to Osaka and later congratulated her for winning, but Williams nonetheless stole the attention away from Osaka's achievement, although inadvertently.
Admittedly, I don't actually watch tennis regularly, much less play it, so I apologise if I therefore shouldn't be commenting here. But I'm a news junkie and this is one of those scandals where sport has bled into politics, which as you know by now I do follow keenly. That's why this entry has come about, and again I wanted to do what I can to shine the limelight back on Naomi Osaka and her breakthrough achievement.
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