Serena Williams disagrees with own coach over US Open controversy
Williams was handed three separate violations by chair umpire Carlos Ramos before losing to Naomi Osaka in New York earlier this month
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Your support makes all the difference.Serena Williams disagrees with her own coach's view on the controversial US Open final and maintains that she was not coached at any point during a heated match with Naomi Osaka.
Umpire Carlos Ramos handed Williams a coaching violation during the match against Osaka after spotting a hand gesture from her coach Patrick Mouratoglou. Williams responded by telling Ramos she would rather lose than cheat.
She was then docked a point for a second violation when she smashed her racket. Continuing her argument with Ramos at the next change of ends, Williams accused him of being a thief for taking a point away from her.
Ramos gave her a third violation, which resulted in a game penalty, putting Osaka 5-3 ahead. A tearful Williams argued her case with tournament officials but, although she held serve in the next game, Osaka served out the victory 6-2 6-4 and take the title.
Williams later defended herself claiming she was fighting for "women's rights and for women's equality".
Mouratoglou himself later admitted to coaching and intimated that Osaka's coach, Sascha Bajin, was doing the same throughout the contest.
"I am honest. I was coaching. I don't think she looked one time. Sascha was coaching every point too," he said at the time.
But Williams disagrees with that assessment and has no idea why he would say so.
“I just don’t understand what [coach Patrick Mouratoglou] was talking about because I asked him, you weren’t coaching, we don’t have signals, we’ve never had signals and he said he made a motion,” she told the Sunday Project.
“So you said you made a motion, now you told people that you’re coaching me. That doesn’t make sense, why would you say that?”
Williams was fined over $13,000 for her actions but now is content to move on from the whole incident.
“What I’m just trying to do most of all is to just recover from that,” she added.
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