Serena Williams row: Why Carlos Ramos' reputation shouldn't be tarnished
A lot has been said, written and tweeted on the Serena Williams controversy in the US Open finals, where she received a game penalty after three code violations. The umpire Carlos Ramos, a golden badge umpire at that was accused of sexism for such a call.
Some fans and former players were quick to criticise the chair umpire for the act while some agreed that Williams was out of line but still felt she was partly right in her stand. But the stats in this year's tournament told a different story. Male players received 86 code violations while the women received just 22.
The history of Ramos has seen him dole out many code and time violations from which even top-flight players like Djokovic, Murray, and Nadal couldn't escape. Most recently he penalized the Serb for smashing his racquet on the ground in Wimbledon earlier this year. "There has been a recent trend in women's tennis where the code violations are on the increase", a point which some made when coming in defense of Williams is indeed valid.
There may be some truth to what Serena had to say during the whole fiasco. But, before jumping the gun and stereotyping the umpires one should take into consideration the history of the particular person involved. When it is not accounted for it just leads to the reputation of the umpire needlessly coming into question, especially when tennis associations like WTA and USTA questions the call it leads to a lot more than just debate.
This is precisely what happened in this controversy with Carlos Ramos. Fortunately, in this incident, the umpire didn't suffer anything more than character assassination as he's all set to chair the US vs. Croatia clash in the Davis Cup.
More than who did wrong what matters is that no conclusion should be arrived at hastily, which unfortunately a portion of the fans made the mistake of doing on social media and at the court. As fans of the game, our reactions and opinions can easily tarnish reputations in this online era and we must not let that happen without knowing the full story.