As always great work Giri. By far my favorite writer on deadspin. 

Great article. I’ve read Deadspin for a long time, but was one “rah rah we’re progressive” piece away from clicking unsubscribe.

Tell me, how would you write and enforce the consistent rule for the following:

Can we just talk about how tennis is stupid for banning coaching during a match but for some insane reason STILL ALLOWS THE COACHES TO SIT IN THE STANDS? Either give the coaches a place to watch the game that isn’t right in front of the player theyre coaching or shut the fuck up about arcane hand signals coming out of…

College football referee and baseball umpire here. So much of the commentary about this event has ascribed motivation to this official’s action, most of which is probably unwarranted. Ramos’s sole motivation was to enforce the rules, and enforce them as consistently as he could. He almost certainly didn’t want to…

So, if Osaka behaved in the same manner (very unlikely) as Williams and was docked a game, do you honestly think Serena would have had a meltdown and played the sexism card on Osaka’s behalf? My bet is absolutely not. This was all about Williams losing to a superior opponent and justifying a childish temper tantrum…

Here’s my take I posted on another blog here...Serena is being coddled as fuck by this site for acting like a complete ass.

Regardless of how you feel about this particular incident, workers organizing to protect their interests is never a bad thing.

This is how an umpire must look at this:

Serena Williams has faced gender and race bias continually throughout her career.

Almost there. Take the final leap and realize that the USTA/ITF/WTP/etc are the real problem for not enforcing a consistent rules culture from the beginning.

Giri, I just wanted to say that I think you’re a really, really good at what you do. No snark, no sarcasm. Well done, as usual. 

Thank you for this article, particularly for putting Osaka first. Of all the takes, this is the best I’ve seen, although I definitely feel Serena deserves about 90+% of the blame here, and genuinely hope there are no lasting repercussions for Carlos Ramos.  If there's something wrong with the rules, as there appears…

I really like Serena. I wanted her to cap off her comeback from giving birth by winning this. But I just don’t get why it’s so impossible for any Deadspin writer to say this:

Not to mention people who simply can’t be bothered to look up simple stats. Just in this tournament two other players were hit with coaching violations, one of them twice in two separate rounds. On top of that men got 86 code violations during the tournament to 22 on the women’s side. Whether one think’s the coaching…

I have not enjoyed this controversy because I have ended up agreeing with a lot of unpleasant people.

Completely agree here, and I think this should be the final word on the matter.

You’ve seen articles insinuating that the racquet call was out of line? Really? I haven’t seen that. I can understand people questioning the merits of the other two but, as you say, that’s utterly routine and is called regularly.

Honestly, I’m like 80-20% it being Serena’s fault. The coaching call was correct but beyond ticky-tack, that’s the 20%. It just doesn’t get called much at all, especially not in a Grand Slam final. I can understand Serena’s frustration there. The rest though? That’s all on Serena. Breaking a racket always gets a…

I always hate the “stage as large as the U.S. Open final” thing. I don’t care if it is the first set of some tournament in Tulsa or the final seconds of the NBA finals. No matter the sport or the circumstances a foul is a foul. Call it consistently.