Letters to the Sports Editor

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To the Sports Editor:

Re “Are Women Penalized More Than Men in Tennis? Data on Fines Says No,” Sept. 14: There are problems with the data used in this article. It attempted to make an apples-to-apples comparison by laying out how many times men have been penalized, and comparing those figures with the number of times that women have been penalized. Even taking into account the difference in number of sets played, which the article did, this comparison is not valid. Girls and women are raised to be “nice” and “polite,” and as a result, they are less likely to argue with chair umpires or abuse rackets or commit visible obscenities — and more likely to be punished for doing so. Research has demonstrated that girls are punished more harshly than boys for misbehaving, even at very young ages, and nothing suggests that this gender problem does not persist into adulthood.

Laura A. Weinstein

New York

To the Sports Editor:

Serena Williams’s comment about gender discrimination in this arena deserves further scrutiny, but I am concerned about how the data was reported. It is certainly possible that men commit a higher number of violations but are penalized for a smaller percentage of them, while women commit far fewer violations but are more likely to be penalized, often for the same behavior that goes unpunished in men. The only way to determine this would be to watch games and see how many incidents of misbehavior go unnoticed by the chair umpire.

Williams was concerned about gender inequity in how penalties are assigned, and this report does not address her concerns. If researchers study this issue further, I would also recommend that they examine how penalties are assigned by race, as it has been shown in multiple studies that African-Americans are more likely to be penalized for minor offenses off the courts.

Melissa Rosenstein

San Rafael, Calif.

To the Sports Editor:

Fines are an extremely narrow view of the misfortunes of this tennis match. There was much more taking place at center stage of all that went wrong in the match between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. How many times has a full game penalty been given in a Grand Slam finals match, let alone how many times for men vs. women? How many times has an umpire during a Grand Slam finals match not allowed the players to just play and not offered a coaching warning before a full code violation was given, let alone how many times for men vs. women? How many insults from men vs. women have been thrown at an umpire? I’m disappointed in The Times for not producing a full and robust representation of the statistics. Fines were the least of what transpired. What does all the data show?

Ellen Griffith

Haskell, N.J.

To the Sports Editor:

I think this article addressed the wrong question, of whether women are penalized more than men. I think the more important question should be: Do men get away with misbehavior more often than women? Meaning, how often are men not penalized when being verbally abusive or conducting themselves in an unsportsmanlike manner in comparison with when women misbehave similarly? If that statistic were made available, then perhaps we could have a clearer understanding as to whether Williams’s claim is justified.

Steven Katz

Jericho, N.Y.

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