Serena Williams gave the coldest of responses when asked about the decision to keep her and Carlos Ramos apart at the US Open, claiming she didn’t know who he is.
Williams – who demolished Maria Sharapova in the first night session of the tournament – was at the centre of a row with the Portuguese umpire during last year’s final defeat to Naomi Osaka, calling him a ‘sexist’, a ‘liar’ and a ‘thief’ during an astonishing meltdown on Arhtur Ashe Stadium.
On her return to her home Grand Slam, it was decided by the United States Tennis Association (USTA) that the Williams sisters would be kept apart from Ramos in all of their matches.
Asked for her thoughts on Ramos being kept off her matches, she astonishingly replied: ‘Yeah, I don’t know who that is.’
Tournament officials had attempted to diffuse the row by keeping Ramos apart and insisted that Williams had not requested him to be kept off her matches, despite her saying on court during the 2018 final, ‘You will never, ever, ever be in another court of mine as long as you live’.
USTA chief executive of professional tennis Stacey Allaster said: ‘‘No, no, the request has not come in. This is our collective decision. We want to focus on the competition. I talked to their teams at all times.’
Tournament referee Soeren Friemel added: ‘Well, I mean, we have a slate of the best officials here for the 2019 US Open, and there is some flexibility.
‘It’s not the first time that we made decisions that where it’s good for the tournament, good for the players, good for the umpires, as well, to not be on those matches.
‘In the end, our goal is to assign the best chair umpire for the right match. So in taking all those factors into consideration, the decision was made that he would not do any of the Williams sisters’ matches.’
