We just witnessed an historic US Open finish in more ways that one. Not only did Naomi Osaka win the Japan's first title in a major tournament, but Serena Williams managed to overshadow this feat with her tirades and accusations of a double standard. Is there a double standard in tennis? It depends on what you mean. If I am to understand Serena, she gets fined for bad language and behavior while men get away with it.
It is possible, but by no means probable, that men do behave poorly more and it is overlooked. But evidence seems to exist to the contrary. After all, it's rare to see a woman suspended for bad behavior (in fact, I have not found any examples of it) on the court. With men, it's a fairly common experience. Connors, McEnroe, Fognini are only a few who were assessed points, games, fines and/or suspended. These are a few of the higher-profile players who have suffered, but it's by no means rare or unusual.
I have seen, in person, quite a few tennis matches. I have rarely seen women assessed penalties. I can't remember all the times I've seen men assessed, mainly because it's happened frequently enough for me to have forgotten. In general, female players are better behaved than the men. If Serena's claim is that men behave badly more often and are not assessed penalties, that's going to be difficult to back up. However, what evidence exists indicates she's very wrong.
The real question is are women held to higher standards? I'd argue no, because I've watched many female tennis players berate judges without being assessed penalties. I've seen it happen at least as often as I've seen men berate judges without a penalty. I think commenting there is a double standard, though, lacks historical context.
To a large degree, the harshness of today's penalties are a result of the bad behavior of players like Nastase, Connors and McEnroe. Tennis' image was taking a beating when these players began creating a new image of 'bad boy' tennis. They were penalized and fined in the hopes of cleaning up that image, but they were good enough and wealthy enough to overlook it and keep going. Female players, in the 70s and 80s, didn't earn the same level of prize money, though they probably could have waved fines off as easily as men, if they were assessed. Still, one player who was far more outspoken and outrageous than Serena, Martina Navratilova, points out that Serena is wrong about her penalty. Navratilova believes (again, without fact to back up the claim) there is a double standard, but just because it exists doesn't mean it justifies behaving the way Serena did. Meanwhile, Navratilova never faced as severe penalties as those faced by Mac and Connors. I saw her play many times, and she was generally good about maintaining her composure - the sign of a great athlete, in my opinion - and that has a lot to do with the reason there may seem to be a double standard. Great athletes usually are good at maintaining their composure.
The reality is, as a friend of mine said, "The facts don't matter in anything anymore. The only thing that matters is the reaction of social media and the emotions it can generate." This seems to be true. Emotional ties seem to trump reality. When McEnroe - who was penalized frequently - says "Serena's right" people will take him at his word. But his word isn't accounting for the fact that he created the situation Serena faces, and that he was penalized more harshly than she was.
What we're going to wind up seeing is a reaction to a generalized 'feeling' that somehow there is a double standard, even if the facts indicate otherwise. Social media works on feelings, not facts, which is one reason the firms running social media have issues trying to determine what is 'real' news and what is 'fake' news. Serena's double standard is fake news, as is any news which is generated by, or relies on, emotions for support in defiance of fact.
