US Open Day 13 – Spellbinding Naomi Osaka Wins First Grand Slam Title; Serena Sees Red In Controversy-Filled Final
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2018
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At the end of a mind-blowing day, and one of the most controversy-filled Grand Slams finals in history, David and Catherine sit down to run through the events in full.
With emotions running high, the theme of the discussion is the need for nuance. Can we accept Serena as a highly-inspirational role model who is also capable of quite unedifying behaviour? And were all three code violations justified?
Not for the first time this tournament, the incident brought the role of the umpire into question. How can Carlos Ramos be criticised for sticking to the letter of the law? Could he have issued a soft warning? Are different standards applied to men and women?
None of the controversy should detract, however, from the spell-binding performance of Naomi Osaka. Before everything kicked off, she was beating Serena handily. In fact, was her brilliance the root cause of Serena's bad temper?
Has there ever been a better performance on debut in a Grand Slam final? We knew Osaka could strike the ball cleanly, but she also proved she can handle an occasion. This was her moment and she seized it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm John McAnerod. I'm Bjorn Borg. |
| 0:02.2 | This is Martina Navratlova. I'm Matt Svillander. |
| 0:04.9 | I'm San Roenka. I'm Lighten Youet. I'm Andy Murray. |
| 0:07.6 | And you're listening to the tennis podcast. |
| 0:19.9 | The US Open Champion is Naomi Osaka of Japan. |
| 0:24.4 | I don't really think that that is going to tell us everything we need to know from what we've |
| 0:28.7 | witnessed over the course of the last few hours. But this is the tennis podcast. |
| 0:33.6 | We are brought to you an association with the tenograph. |
| 0:36.0 | We are sponsored by Amazon Prime Video UK for whom Catherine has been presenting the coverage |
| 0:42.1 | tonight on a quite mind-blowing night, really. And it's difficult to know where to start. |
| 0:51.2 | So what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you what happened from where I stood. |
| 0:56.5 | And I was part of the BBC Radio 5 Live coverage. I wasn't commentating tonight, |
| 1:02.7 | but I was watching it. I was sent out into the stadium to interview people and to get some |
| 1:09.7 | reaction to all the events that unfolded. But this is what happened as I saw it. |
| 1:13.9 | Naomi Osaka played absolutely stunning tennis in the first set. And she went five one up. |
| 1:20.8 | She ended up willing that set. And in the second set, Serena Williams was called for coaching. |
| 1:29.6 | She was given a code violation for coaching from her coach Patrick Moratoggle, |
| 1:35.9 | which subsequently a little video became clear. Some footage was unearthed, |
| 1:43.2 | showing that he was making hand signals in her direction. |
| 1:46.0 | Unpriced Carlos Ramas of Portugal said, |
| 1:49.3 | Code violation warning Miss Williams. She came to the net and she disputed it. |
| 1:57.6 | She said that I'm not a cheat. I would rather lose than cheat. |
... |
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