Lettuce discuss it here.

9/2/2015 5:23:12 PM

they should start this tournament like a month earlier when we really need it in the sports world now it gets overshadowed to some degree by the start of football

9/3/2015 3:34:31 PM

man I only watched the second half of that match after nadal dominated the first sporadically but it looked like that Italian guy just got in to that zone where your timing is so good you can go all out on every shot and pull off a winner

9/5/2015 1:31:56 AM

I like how tennis has wrasslin style intros now.

9/8/2015 8:14:38 PM

Clearly Serena is the better player, but Venus looks like she's tanking.

9/8/2015 9:13:27 PM

9/11/2015 3:08:00 PM

I blame Drake

9/11/2015 3:19:51 PM

Damn. Hell of a win in her first grand slam semi. Did anyone watch it?

Who could have predicted an all Italian final?

9/11/2015 3:21:03 PM

I was almost kind of rooting against Serena, the competition has been pretty shit in womens tennis lately so I'm all for some parity, plus Serena's all power no movement game can get a little tiresome for me

9/11/2015 3:30:23 PM

Ha. Drake's mediocrity is contagious.

9/11/2015 4:57:40 PM

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/09/11/this_insane_point_from_roberta_vinci_v_serena_williams_shows_why_it_s_so.html

9/11/2015 5:04:37 PM

Here we go. Federer ftw!!!

9/13/2015 7:19:37 PM

fed wasn't really blown off the court, he just had a lot of shitty forehand errors and couldn't convert break points, I'd still like to see him win another slam or two but I dunno

9/14/2015 2:16:26 PM

he tends to beat himself when he plays Djoko. I'd love to see him win a few more but I don't see it happening unless somebody pulls a horseshoe and knocks off Djoko before the finals.

9/14/2015 2:34:48 PM

good grief, at one point I saw that Fed was like 3/20 on break points. Thats horrendous. He had so many chances and just blew them all.

9/14/2015 2:37:24 PM

Begins today

http://deadspin.com/the-u-s-open-mens-draw-is-a-joke-1798501314

[Edited on August 28, 2017 at 3:21 PM. Reason : ]

8/28/2017 3:18:53 PM

this sharapova match is def a contrast in styles, maria faltering a bit with the errors though

8/28/2017 9:57:54 PM

when Maria is on, she's on. very entertaining match.

8/29/2017 9:04:51 AM

this match rules

this crowd does not

8/29/2017 11:48:57 PM

TFO is the future

8/30/2017 12:19:24 AM

^^ You can't expect a city to fall out of love with someone they're head over heels for in favor of someone they're supposed to love.

[Edited on August 30, 2017 at 12:43 AM. Reason : This ain't the Davis Cup]

8/30/2017 12:36:45 AM

of course you can

especially if the American kid is giving that kind of effort

it's our national championship, for fucks sake

[Edited on August 30, 2017 at 8:25 AM. Reason : and it's not like Federer is Mr. Personality ]

8/30/2017 8:23:33 AM

Is your objection that they cheered for Federer at all? According to the articles I read and the highlights I watched, the crowd was behind Tiafoe, but cheered for both. Tiafoe acknowledged the crowd was behind him in the press conference.

Quote :

"it's not like Federer is Mr. Personality"

With very few outliers, Roger is always the crowd favorite on every court he steps on. His popularity is undeniable, and that's especially true in New York. Part of that is his status as the arguable GOAT, and in New York it's partly because we haven't had an American champion to cheer for in nearly 15 years.

8/30/2017 11:33:12 AM

he broke Federer's serve the first chance he had in the 1st set (en route to winning the set) and the crowd did nothing

they only started to cheer for him after they realized that they were in the middle of an epic match

it's ok to cheer for a homegrown phenom against the GOAT

[Edited on August 30, 2017 at 12:01 PM. Reason : .]

8/30/2017 11:44:42 AM

Match was awesome. While the crowd seemed to cheer more for Fed early on, Tiafoe definitely had crowd support later on.

8/30/2017 11:46:12 AM

tiafoe might finally be american tennis' saving grace in a year or two.

8/30/2017 7:25:35 PM

Roger is about to play

9/2/2017 9:13:09 PM

Federer out. So close to a meeting with Nadal

9/6/2017 11:51:19 PM

sloane stephens!

[Edited on September 7, 2017 at 9:34 PM. Reason : looks like a cutie to boot]

9/7/2017 9:31:34 PM

Pretty wicked swings in that match. Venus had the momentum going into the 3rd but couldn't finish.

9/7/2017 9:53:02 PM

man i had no idea madison keys was even black til i read an espn article

what piqued my interest in stephens was her speed, awesome to see a potential elite (american) no less women's tennis player that can move like that

9/9/2017 4:18:46 PM

Its great to wake up and see that the USTA CEO is a black woman announcing a US Open championship between two black women. The Williams sisters smashed a serve right through the glass ceiling.

9/9/2017 5:43:42 PM

^https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althea_Gibson

9/9/2017 5:58:47 PM

Williams sisters are starting their match atm

8/31/2018 8:10:02 PM

Pretty lackluster, Serena is still lightyears better than literally everyone else

8/31/2018 10:02:48 PM

Yeah I saw a few killer shots from Venus and thought we might have a match on our hands (with Serena still coming back from her break) but that was definitely not the case. They did say Venus hasn't been healthy much lately anyway.

9/1/2018 8:00:33 AM

^^some of the commentators were talking about how it seems whenever another woman rises to win a grand slam she seems to fall apart for a while after

on the other hand sloane stephens looks awesome, she's prob my favorite player to watch man or woman right now but can she actually beat serena I don't know

9/1/2018 10:10:04 PM

What a mess.

Hate it for Osaka.

[Edited on September 8, 2018 at 7:41 PM. Reason : https://slate.trib.al/OajnG9L]

9/8/2018 7:40:54 PM

still trying to digest all that, my first but not last question would be is do the umpires always give penalties for smashing your racket or just a warning or something

9/8/2018 8:01:45 PM

Racquet abuse has long been disallowed, as are other acts of bad sportsmanship, kicking stuff, throwing stuff, verbal abuse etc. It's often a fine by the USTA, and is also also often penalized by loss of points. Serena has a long history of these penalties, but she's far from the only one. Check out John McEnroe's history for example.

[Edited on September 8, 2018 at 8:43 PM. Reason : That one is pretty straight forward for me...I would like to see a history of penalties for these coaching violations which started this whole thing tho.

9/8/2018 8:42:32 PM

what a diva

9/8/2018 10:38:11 PM

So, is Serena a shitty person? Is the hatred she garners justified?
I know people love to talk shit about how muscular the Williams sisters are, which is bunk, if you just appreciate the talent and hard work.
But they seem to be divas and all-around assholes by the way they carry themselves.

9/8/2018 11:12:41 PM

Quote :

"That one is pretty straight forward for me...I would like to see a history of penalties for these coaching violations which started this whole thing tho. "

which would be my second question, pretty rare methinks at least in grand slam finals, seems a little much to set a precedent there, also Pam Shriver seemed to suggest serena wasn't even looking at her coach at the time...could be wrong though

and then the third strike...chris evert seemed to say she'd never seen something like that before...at least in such a big moment I guess

(if my memory serves Serena only lost a point in that outburst in the clisters match)

[Edited on September 9, 2018 at 12:01 AM. Reason : k]

9/8/2018 11:54:42 PM

I have a daughter!

9/9/2018 2:26:55 AM

Quote :

"So, is Serena a shitty person? Is the hatred she garners justified?"

Clearly no and no, she's just incredibly competitive (cliche), and at times loses her shit during matches, letting emotion take over and exhibiting bad sportsmanship as a result. It's not been as severe an issue like it was with McEnroe or even Agassi, but it's been consistent through the years.

You have to keep some of that framed in the reality of what her family has been through coming up in (and more so, dominating) women's tennis which is a very white sport, both in terms of athletes and viewership. These days you can look at the number of times Serena has been tested for PEDs for example...I'm not knowledgeable about the policies and mechanisms of that process (someone please share if you are), but Serena's repeated testing is suspect at best, outright racist at worst.

In this case, again I'd like to see the history of players getting penalized for illegal coaching from the stands which started this whole episode...I suspect there is a history of it, but it's probably not a rich history. And I doubt it matters if Serena saw it and used the coaching. As the rule's written, her box probably just isn't allowed to do that, as her coach noted. But if it's not been applied consistently, then the umpire needs to be held accountable. However, it's not in Serena's interest to try and be the one to do that during a match. The second episode was clear cut racket abuse, without involvement from the ump, and the third penalty was a result of calling the umpire a name after going around again about the first penalty, which is also a no-go.

Like I said earlier, this just sucks for Osaka. She and her sister got into competitive tennis because her family was inspired by the Williams sisters, and Serena is her idol, so it's unfortunate that her incredible play and first Grand Slam championship is marred by this controversy.

9/9/2018 11:55:41 AM

https://deadspin.com/naomi-osaka-paid-the-price-for-the-feud-between-serena-1828946842

9/10/2018 10:26:17 PM

sometimes ultra-competitive people never learn how to lose with dignity

9/10/2018 11:35:02 PM

Generally stayed out of this discussion, but really good article I read from the Irish Independent:

Quote :

"Once upon a time there was a girl called Serena Williams, and like any kid she wanted to be treated just like the rest. The problem was that she was a black female in an establishment sport where many women have been happy to make their money from being the blonde girl-next-door pin-ups. Playing with her sister Venus at just five in Los Angeles, not yet old enough to know about colour, watchers-on started calling them Blackie One and Blackie Two for no other reason than that colour. Still making it in this sphere, she drew looks all the way up. And when reaching the top table, and only a teen, she wandered onto the court to hear 'n**ger' muttering around Indian Wells. It was a brutal and gripping narrative, that many struggle to let go of. But they need to, for it's not the true narrative anymore. This is an age of -isms and that can be both a good and a bad thing. These are powerful and delicate words that ought not to be spat out as idle gossip, for that is to demean and diminish their huge importance. However they also allow for false crusades which is easier than any apology. Williams has dragged them into that realm, and this weekend was the perfect example. Pulled up for breaking the rules, she couldn't accept she was wrong, and proceeded to hijack a major issue, trivialising it to protect herself. Yet in a time of celebrity worship, to the baying masses it doesn't matter that all the facts and evidence are against her, all that matters is she's famous. There's something tragic in that. A problem here is most people don't know much about women's tennis, and we know this because dwindling numbers and interest have hurt the sport financially. It's on the ropes, clinging to her name and therefore indulging her ego. Take a couple of examples and don't consider her actions as allegations, but as mere statement of recorded history. Back in 2010 and 2011, across a period where she picked up two of her Grand Slams, she wasn't actually tested once but then in October of 2011, when testers finally came to her house, she claims to have fled and locked herself in the panic room thinking it was a robbery. No test was subsequently conducted. Meanwhile just this year another tester showed to Williams' home in Florida unannounced and was shown in by an assistant. She wasn't there but the tester refused to leave until they got what they came for. But as in 2011, the test never took place and after that incident she called the head of the WTA Steve Simon, and moaned about unfair targeting. Now consider her sport's reaction to all that. Silence from those in the boardroom down to the circus below. For those on the outside though, there was a moment on Saturday that was quite remarkable, and that was somehow passed over. We can understand the in-game rant where she lost control as defeat and age and frustration all came together - granted her line that 'you will never, ever, ever be on another court of mine as long as you live' was telling. However, afterwards in the press conference she was asked if she had any regrets given her claims she wasn't coached from the stands had been proven wrong. The 36-year-old was caught cold and in quite a panic reached for any shield. "I'm out here fighting for... women's rights," she blurted out. The see-through nature of this claim was obvious when she added, "and all kinds of stuff". Now she cannot let it go. In her world, there is an endless list of sad and sorry issues to use as a focal point for a campaign. Some have pertained directly to her such as the treatment at the French Open over attire, meanwhile already this US Open there was the warning Alize Cornet received for changing a top. But neither would have helped Williams or justified her abuse. And yet at that same press conference there was an embarrassing round of applause for her desperation, and what followed was all jumping on her pseudo-cause around women's rights. Toni Van Pelt, president of America's National Organisation for Women penned a letter suggesting umpire Carlos Ramos be sacked, a guy who did his job perfectly and for it got $633. Billie Jean King of course wasted no time in rowing in. Former Destiny's Child member Kelly Rowland added her voice for some reason. Anna Kesell in The Guardian noted that, "Significantly, the attacks on Williams have been personal, her career-long professionalism and suitability as a role model called into question". Christine Brennan of USA Today asked if Williams was punished for breaking rules due to being a woman, over race, once wearing a cat suit, being a mother, or not being dainty? And then came the aforementioned Steve Simon putting player above the rules, undermining his organisation again. Sometimes you close your eyes and imagine hands big enough to grab this globe and to shake it. This is the mother of all smokescreens that has shown up a massive cowardice and an agenda-over-facts bias in the media, particularly in the United States. Just as Donald Trump knows he could kill someone and still get the votes, Williams knows she can spoof and still get support. But let's strip back this fatty emotion and get to the bones of the truth about what went down. Firstly Williams was given a violation call and a warning due to being coached from the stands. This is as per the rule, and her coach Patrick Mouratoglou admitted to it. Then she got pulled up for racket abuse, smashing hers with the call again right as it cost her a point. And finally on her third warning, she had a game given against her, as this time the offence was abuse of the umpire as she felt the first warning should have been retracted although this never happens, while proceeding to call Ramos a thief and demand an apology. To avoid this truth though, those who are in a rush to call foul based on sex would be better reading before talking. Did they know for instance that this umpire is a stickler for rules? That at the French Open at the start of the summer he gave both Marco Cecchinato and Novak Djokovic a warning for coaching from the stands? That Djokovic had a run-in with him at Wimbledon after being penalised for throwing his racket? That at the Olympics in 2016, Andy Murray got a warning for calling him stupid? The same three warnings she got. There are any amount of other instances of consistency, from Rafael Nadal stripped of a serve for taking too long, to Nick Kyrgios given a code violation for shouting at a ball boy. In fact her own sister too had a run-in in 2016 for coaching from the stands, retorting "I’m 36 years old. I play fair". It seems some traits run in the family. But do those kicking and screaming over Serena ever care about any of this now they've got their latest outrage and are running with it? Ultimately what people are trying to claim is that in a match between two women, an umpire enforcing the rules as he has done for both sexes across his career, is sexism? Would not enforcing the rules, given it would have hurt Naomi Osaka, a women, have been sexist? And if Williams wants equal treatment, should she not instead have highlighted how lightly she got off given last year Fabio Fognini was thrown out of the US Open and fined $96,000 for shouting at a female umpire? Then again, that's really the crux of this that nobody wants to go near. Calling out hypocrisy and deceit and nonsense shouldn't be decided by colour or sex. Yet many are being selective on such a basis, engaging in what they claim to be trying to get rid of. If only they'd stand back and drill down and ask some vital questions. Was she fighting for women's rights at the 2009 US Open when she told a female line-judge that, "I swear to God, I'll f**king take the ball and shove it down your f**king throat"? Was she fighting for women's rights when initially refusing to say sorry after that, instead stating: "An apology from me? How many people yell at lines-people? I see it happening all the time. I don't know how many times I have seen that happen. I am a professional. I'm not the beggar, like, 'Please, please, please, let me have another chance,' because it was the rules and I play by the rules." Was she fighting for women's rights when telling a female umpire she was "unattractive inside"? Was she fighting for women's rights when she took away the biggest moment of Naomi Osaka's career and has continued to do so? Of course not, she was fighting for her own interests no matter who or what got in the way. Including the rules. Once upon a time there was a girl called Serena Williams, and like any kid she wanted to be treated just like the rest. Now a woman though, she rages against not being afforded special treatment. "

9/12/2018 12:29:07 PM

Nadal just had an all-timer of a shot

9/2/2019 10:13:11 PM

It was a good shot

9/2/2019 10:26:00 PM