--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained this week comes from TransferWise. It's a cheaper way to send and receive your money. The Economist says TransferWise takes a machete to the hefty fees that come with sending money abroad. I wouldn't recommend taking a machete to anything, but you can check out TransferWise for free when you go to TransferWise.com slash today or download the app.
--:-- [Music transitions to a brief sound effect]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I watch a lot of tennis. I've been watching tennis since I was a kid with my dad, who watched a lot of tennis before me, but neither of us had ever seen anything quite like Saturday's U.S. Open final between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. No one who watches tennis had ever seen anything like it.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Yes, I was. I'm Caitlin Thompson, the publisher of Racket Magazine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let's start before that first serve even happened, Caitlin. Was this matchup between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka going to be a big deal regardless of who won?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Yes, and I'll tell you why. Serena Williams has 23 Grand Slams total. Technically, she has the most Grand Slams of anyone, male or female, ever.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And for the kids at home who don't know what a Grand Slam is, it's what, the Australian Open, the US Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon in the UK, yeah?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Correct. It's the biggest tournaments of the calendar year.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, there's a bit of an asterisk next to that because originally the record stood at 22 Grand Slams held by my girl Steffi Graf, German 22.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Nobody ever thought in our lifetimes anybody would surpass that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Then here comes Serena, ties it, breaks it, and some would say a new record was invented for her to chase. 24 Grand Slams won by Margaret Court, who's a terrible homophobe who lives in Australia.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: But nobody really considered that a big deal because Margaret Court won it in the non-open era.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Will she surpass Margaret Court, putting into any clarity the fact that she is in fact the greatest male female to hold a racket of all time?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And Serena won her first U.S. Open, her first Grand Slam title in 1999, and she was facing off against Naomi Osaka, who was potentially going to win her first U.S. Open against her hero, Serena Williams.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Against her hero, Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka's dad, Leonard, who's a Haitian man, was watching the Williams sisters compete and decided that that is what he would teach his daughters.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And so the tie between Naomi Osaka and Serena, it like extends way back to basically the beginning of 20-year-old Naomi Osaka's career.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, a lot of us who watch tennis were expecting Naomi Osaka to win. She'll be giggly and deferential in press conferences, but when she gets on the court, she's not messing around.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: When I step onto the court, I feel like a different person, right? I'm not a Serena fan. I'm just a tennis player playing another tennis player.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She's what I think a lot of us are so thrilled is the future of tennis. Like, there's no doubt that she is in terms of what she's capable of doing and playing like.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: But in terms of how she sort of effortlessly but also thoughtfully talks about being Haitian, having a ton of connection to the States, having spent a lot of time here, but being born in Osaka and being an outsider in a culture that she really identifies with because obviously her mother is Japanese.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She's kind of an outsider no matter where she goes. She's an interesting kid.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And I think coming into this match, the question wasn't, can she play better tennis than Serena? It was just more like, can she keep it together?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is a Grand Slam final against her idol. Knowing that the crowd was going to be super, super crazy pro Serena, could she bring her best game to the court?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And we should say that in the semifinal match that Naomi Osaka played to get to this final with Serena, at the post-game interview, they said, you know, you face 13 break points. 13 saved.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How did you do that?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: This is going to sound really bad. But I was just thinking I really want to play Serena. Why? Because she's Serena.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like what do you mean?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And she said it so sincerely. And then they said, like, do you have anything you'd like to say to Serena? And she goes, I love you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then kind of giggled and smiled. Anything else to add?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: I love everybody.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so how does this match on Saturday evening start off?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Naomi Osaka immediately is winning points. Again, and for Satosaka, six games to two.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's not always the worst sign for Serena fans.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: I knew Serena had another gear, and when she would find it is kind of what I was thinking.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Serena goes down a set, right, in all this, and then things start to get interesting at sort of the beginning of the second set?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: At the beginning of the second set, she goes up a game, which puts her ahead for the first time in the match.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, her record of coming from behind, finding a way, finding another gear, getting fired up, getting the crowd involved, all of these things are things the other players know about her.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And then the infamous thing happens.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this is an incident involving Serena's coach. He, at this point, flashes a signal to her. Play the net because Serena's getting beat on the baseline.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Well, I mean, I'm honest. I was coaching. I mean, I don't think she looked at me, so that's why she didn't even think I was.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The chair umpire notices it, right? The chair umpire immediately says, code violation, coaching. Warning.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: It's not a super common call, but by all accounts, it was the correct call.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it might be confusing to some people who don't know tennis, but basically when someone's in a match, you're not supposed to be receiving coaching of any kind.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: It's sort of one-on-one, no other voices, no other input, yeah?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's another confusing thing. That is a rule that's applied uniformly across the men's game and only in grand slams in the women's game.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: So in the women's game, you actually can have coaching.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And oftentimes players will request their coach and their coach will come down and sit with them on changeovers and go over tactics.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Sometimes they'll have smart pads. They'll talk about statistics. And oftentimes they're mic'd up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Carlos Ramos, the chair umpire, says, hey, that's a warning. You can't receive coaching.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: How does Serena react to that warning?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Real bad.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: She's somebody who takes the sort of ethics of the sport extremely seriously.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I understand why you may have thought that was coaching, but I'm telling you it's not.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: I don't cheat to win. I'd rather lose.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm just letting you know.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: I don't in any way think that this was this umpire's intention to sort of cast dispersions onto like the metal of her character.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That said, that's how she interpreted it.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Which was interesting because just watching it from home, I saw it as almost he was giving her coach a warning, not really giving Serena any sort of warning.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Serena clearly didn't do anything wrong.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: She looked up at her coach who was making a hand signal and the chair umpire said, hey, you can do that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She perhaps charitably could be seen as having a misunderstanding of what that rule means and how to sort of interpret it.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Which is, as you said, your coach is coaching you, not you are cheating.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Or you could uncharitably view it as the beginning of Serena finding a reason to get the crowd involved, to get herself riled up, and find that Serena Williams that needs to be on this court because whatever's happening isn't working.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: So what happens next once Serena has this first altercation with the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She came back out after that, and she played a couple of brilliant points, getting fiery.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: But you know what else happened?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Naomi Osaka had answers for every single one of them.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: She was better, period.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that made Serena very angry.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And that's when the racket gets broken.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Serena, as she loses that game, and there's no doubt in my mind, Serena, knowing she was breaking a racket, knew she was going to get a code violation.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: It's an automatic one.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's no room for interpretation. If you abuse your racket, you get a point penalty, period.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: But I think Serena, maybe because she was sort of all this emotion was swirling around, the greater sort of context of what's happening, she doesn't realize that she's already been warned.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The coaching was the warning.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: She thought that the penalty might have gone away, the warning might have gone away, but it hadn't.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So instead, she was facing sort of her second tier of penalty.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Right. The first infraction is a warning. The second infraction is a point. The third infraction is a game. The fourth infraction is getting defaulted.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I believe this rule was instituted in 1990, when basically John McEnroe couldn't behave at all.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Answer my question!
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The question, jerk!
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Now, she gets so enraged at this point, and she has a lot to say about it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this continues after, like, the next changeover.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: You stole a point from me. You're a thief, too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Instead of de-escalating the situation, he decided to apply the full force of the rules.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Code violation, verbal abuse, game penalty, Mrs. Williams.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Upon being called a thief and a liar, he decided to dock her a game.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Now, that's not an arbitrary docking of a game. It's a third violation of the rules.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She goes back to the baseline, now trailing three games to five.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And once this game is penalized, not only does it look like the match is almost over, but all hell breaks loose, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All hell breaks loose.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: There are men out here that do live-watch because I'm a woman. Because I'm a woman, you're going to take this away from me? That is not right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And everyone starts booing and basically losing their minds.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Oh my goodness, this is very unfortunate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what's Osaka doing while all this is going on?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: To her credit, she's literally hopping at the back of the baseline, eyes on her strings, adjusting with her fingers, basically just trying to breathe and stay detached.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Some context that's useful at this moment is that Sasha Bajan, who's a Serbian-German guy, used to be a hitting partner of Serena's and notably got his first coaching job when he started working with Naomi Osaka last fall.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: He knows Serena very, very, very well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it is at this moment that I suspect he had sort of the most impact on the match.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Only in the sense that watching her calmly detach herself from the pandemonium that was happening between a number of tournament officials and Serena and the crowd.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She goes into her own kind of bubble. She's staring at her strings.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And I have to imagine that Sasha Bajin gave her some kind of coaching before this match, saying, with Serena, it's never just about the tennis. There's going to be something else. There's going to be some kind of other big moment, whether it's the emotions or the crowd or all the above.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I doubt he could have predicted this.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: But I saw a well-coached player and also an incredibly emotionally poised player choosing not to involve themselves or get rattled by any of this, which is remarkable.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After this subsides and the two players take their positions, Naomi Osaka serving, Naomi Osaka is ice cold.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: That is undeniable.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She gets up and she serves a game with poise and an incredibly, honestly to me, breathtaking amount of concentration and closes it out.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And celebrates in a muted way amid an increasingly distraught crowd but the tennis that she played the the the game that she plays uh on her serve at 5-4 is one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen because it combined what we knew of her which is her tremendous tennis playing skills which what was really tested which was the fact that she's a 20-year-old in her first grand slam final playing against the greatest of all time men or women period and coincidence or not her idol and she keeps it together and plays an incredible game.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One of the things like I'll never forget from watching this match wasn't necessarily all the unprecedented stuff that happened on the court during the match, but it was after Naomi Osaka won, what is the realization of a lifelong dream she had to play Serena Williams in the U.S. Open Women's Final and win.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: She gives Serena a hug, she climbs up to the stands to give her mom a hug, and then she comes back down and puts a towel over her face and sits on the sidelines for like five minutes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the camera keeps oscillating between Serena, who's clearly upset, and the champion who's sitting there covering her face from the world in the height of her entire professional career because the emotions were so raw and mixed for her.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Well, and I think also the context here is that the crowd was of 20,000 people is raining down booze.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then things get worse during the trophy ceremony.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And now, if you would, for our finalist, Serena Williams.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've never seen anything like this.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: I was distraught watching this. It was horrible.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think I might have cried a little bit.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Serena not the result that you wanted tonight.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How do you put into perspective what this match contained?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Um, well, I don't want to be rude, but I don't want to interrupt. I don't want to do questions. I just want to tell you guys, she played well, and this is her first Grand Slam.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Naomi Osaka, the fresh-faced champion of the sport, who should have been basking in applause and exhilaration at achieving this thing, is pulling her visor over her eyes, covering tears.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And it was just a fiasco. Like, nobody quite knew what to do or how to deal with it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it gets so bad that Serena has to ask the crowd to stop booing and let Naomi have her moment, right?
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And I know you guys were here rooting, and I was rooting too, but let's make this the best moment we can, and we'll get through it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But let's give everyone the credit where credit's due, and let's not boo anymore.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: We're going to get through this and let's be positive.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So congratulations, Naomi. No more booing.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: Serena pulls it together, gets the crowd to acknowledge that this is Naomi's moment and that Naomi played really well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This was the shining moment for me of Serena. Gives Naomi a hug, makes it very clear that she is not angry with her.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: And then Naomi's fighting back tears as she gives her acceptance speech.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know that everyone was cheering for her, and I'm sorry it had to end like this.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: I just want to say thank you for watching the match. Thank you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: From what happened in terms of the way that the players spoke on the podium, Great sportsmanship, great leadership, and I think a great job done by both of them to sort of save the moment.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: But I would argue also that, you know, the damage was already done by then.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Coming up, Williams-Osaka instantly goes from being a tennis match to a Rorschach test for your attitudes on sports and fairness and gender and race and tradition, whatever.
--:-- Caitlin Thompson: This is Today Explained.
--:-- [Theme music starts playing]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hello? Hey, Jeff Bird. Hi, how's it going?
--:-- Jeff Bird: Hey, Sean. I'm doing really good, man. How are you?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm doing really good, man. How are you?
--:-- Jeff Bird: I'm calling you from Washington, D.C. You're in Toronto, Canada, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is an international call, Sean.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Yeah, that's right. And I'm calling you internationally to tell you about TransferWise because you're my friend and you're a great friend.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And one time when I came to visit you in Toronto as a great friend, You just gave me $10 and were like, hey, have one on me.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I just want to let you know that with TransferWise, you could just do that digitally. You could just send me money internationally anytime.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So if I'm following correctly here, the international character of this call dovetails quite well with the nature of the product.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Nailed it. Yeah, you can try the app for free when you go to TransferWise.com slash today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Amazing. I think I might do that slash today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So we got Serena saying this is about equality, we've got Osaka saying I'm just glad to have won, thanks please leave me alone, we've got the U.S. Tennis Association saying we need to figure this out, they slap Serena with the requisite fines, but then something happens which is, of course, the mob reacts.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And what does the mob do?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As far as I can tell, in the media circles I inhabit, this ignites a firestorm, mostly pro-Serina, pro-women, pro-empowerment.
--:-- Jeff Bird: This can be seen as part of women's fight for equality, a working mother think pieces hot takes op-eds television appearances everyone's got something to add into this which I think is great.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, there is real inequality in the game right just a week earlier a female player got fined for changing her shirt on court while wearing a sports bra while you know when there was a break in a match later on in the tournament Novak Djokovic took his shirt off and like leaned back with his hands behind his head and sort of had a big grin on his face and basked in, you know, having a little bit of ventilation.
--:-- Jeff Bird: So women are fine for taking their shirts off and not exposing anything. Men take their shirts off and are celebrated for it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is a game where there is a fair amount of double standards going on, right?
--:-- Jeff Bird: I mean, Novak Djokovic, who won the men's singles title, has gone on the record talking about whether or not women actually deserve to be paid equally.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So like, yeah, this is a pretty, certainly misogynist sport.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Right before this tournament started, this US Open, the French Open based in Paris, which takes place in late spring, announced a rule change to their clothing policy and the cat suit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they specifically called out Serena Williams' outfit from this year. Her onesie that was dubbed by a lot of players as the catsuit would be banned next year.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Now, Serena took this sort of in stride and said, And when it comes to fashion, you don't want to be a repeat offender, so it'll be a while before this even has to come up again.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And didn't sort of want to take on the implications of her getting singled out in a French Tennis Federation announcement from another Grand Slam, basically saying, we didn't like how you looked at this tournament and we're going to make sure that nobody, especially you, feels like they can look that way again.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And we should mention that Serena said that this cat suit was actually meant to prevent these blood clots that she had dealt with post-pregnancy, yeah?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Exactly. It was made of a material that helped her circulation.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And in talking about how egregious this was and how terribly unfair this was and how male outfits don't get policed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I was recalling literally all the ways that Serena Williams has been policed her whole career, her whole life, I would imagine.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Obviously, she sort of famously grew up playing on the public tennis courts in Compton after being born in Michigan and was raised by a dad who didn't know anything about tennis but learned it from books and took her and her sister out to the court and was determined to make them champions.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can see an early interview with Venus, her sister, where an interviewer is basically trying to pry from her her confidence.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Did you think you could beat her?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know I can beat her.
--:-- Jeff Bird: You know you can beat her.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Very confident I very confident
--:-- Jeff Bird: You say it so easily Why Because I believe it
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And let me tell you why.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And her father, to his great credit, steps in and says, what are you doing? Why are you trying to take away a little kid's confidence?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We can't keep interrupting.
--:-- Jeff Bird: I mean, if you want... You've got to understand that you're dealing with an image of a 14-year-old child.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this child will be out there playing with your old ass and me going to be in the grave.
--:-- Jeff Bird: When she says something, we done told you what's happening. You done with a little black kid and let her be a kid.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She done answered it with a lot of confidence. Leave that alone.
--:-- Jeff Bird: It's heartbreaking because you know that this is not an isolated incident.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These kids showed up on the tour with braids that clacked. People complained about the noise. People complained about the way their father coached them. People complained about the outfits that they wore, the celebrations that they did, the way they spoke.
--:-- Jeff Bird: They've never not been in the conversation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Serena has never not been in the conversation in a way that she, I would imagine, must feel is terribly out of her control.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I think to her credit in these last couple of years, especially, she's really started to take the lead in how she shapes that narrative and how she understands her force as a cultural figure and what she's going to use it to do and what conversations she's going to use it to highlight.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When Serena, in the heat of this conflict with the chair umpire, with the tournament referee, made mention that, you know, this isn't the first time she's endured something like this at the U.S. Open, what was she referring to?
--:-- Jeff Bird: There's three incidents that come to my mind.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In 2004, she's playing against Jennifer Capriati and gets what is largely now sort of acknowledged as a series of some of the worst calls that a player has ever gotten.
--:-- Jeff Bird: This is a woman umpire who gives Serena basically unconscionably bad calls, and Serena goes on to lose the match.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Serena's going to come right over to talk to the chair. That was way in. That was way in.
--:-- Jeff Bird: I always defer to you on these, but I thought it was good.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Excuse me?
--:-- Jeff Bird: That ball was so in!
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A larger conversation is engendered by this incident, and they institute something called Hawkeye, which if anybody has watched tennis on TV and you see the instant replay where the ball is sort of zoomed in upon after the point, that's the Hawkeye system that basically Serena's incident helped come into being.
--:-- Jeff Bird: So Serena has been on the receiving end of such historically bad calls that tennis literally changed the way it conducted its affairs, changed the rules to make up for it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 100 percent.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Now, what I'm about to say is a huge part of this conversation, too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In 2009, she's playing Kim Clijsters. She's two points away from losing the match.
--:-- Jeff Bird: She goes up, loses a point, down match point, gets called on a fault, turns around and threatens to shove the ball down the umpire's throat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She already had a code violation.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I guess I've made a decision to default Serena Williams.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On match point down.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Well, it's an awkward situation for Kim Kleisters. She certainly did not want to win this match in this way.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In 2011, she gets called in the second set of a Sam Stoser match, the finals, with a hindrance call.
--:-- Jeff Bird: A hindrance is when you do something as a player that hinders your opponent's ability to play.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In the middle of the point, Serena felt like she hit what was a winner, said, come on, celebrating it, even though Sam Stoser was about to hit the ball.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And the Empire, another woman, Ava Atsuraki Moore, a Greek woman, calls the point against Serena and gives her a warning.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And she loses her mind, goes to the Empire and says, you're a person who's ugly on the inside.
--:-- Jeff Bird: If you see me walking down the hall, look the other way.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've been violated for a water.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Really, don't even look at me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I promise you, don't look at me.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Because I am not the one.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Don't look my way.
--:-- Jeff Bird: When I was watching Saturday's final, all three of those things were in my mind.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Serena has been surrounded by controversy, and not all of it was thrust upon her.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Some of it is of her own making.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This incident has been a Rorschach test for tennis fans, for sports fans.
--:-- Jeff Bird: But the one thing I think anyone can agree on is that this whole mess seriously detracted from what should have been the crowning moment for Naomi Osaka, who made history.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She became the first player of Japanese descent to ever win a Grand Slam, male or female.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Is there always going to be an asterisk on this match?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I hope not.
--:-- Jeff Bird: I think they both deserve better.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There are very few things I am certain about.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Having watched this, having been a tennis fan, being a publisher of a tennis magazine, this is what I'm certain of.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you are somebody who doesn't want to admit the context that women, particularly women of color, operate in, now's your chance to do better.
--:-- Jeff Bird: If you're somebody who thinks it is acceptable for one second to boo at a final or go into Naomi Osaka's social media mentions and tell her she got a Grand Slam gifted to her, now's your chance to do better.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's nobody in this who doesn't need scrutiny other than Naomi Osaka, who played lights out tennis, who I hope and know will be back in that situation again and again.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Caitlin Thompson is the publisher of Racket Magazine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram from Today Explained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Everybody loves it when you send them money, and that applies to your international friends and family too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can use TransferWise to save some money on an exchange rate and to avoid some high fees when you send money internationally, and you can try the service out for free at transferwise.com slash today or when you download the app.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Kara Swisher, you've been here for five, six, seven, eight days now in a row.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're talking about the Recode Decode podcast.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Yeah, it's Dale Doherty and Mike Sinise. They are really important figures in the maker movement.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't know if you know what the maker movement is.
--:-- Jeff Bird: DIY making stuff, everyone making stuff.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A little more than DIY.
--:-- Jeff Bird: You know, it's like robots and drones and things like that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is it like the 3D printing too?
--:-- Jeff Bird: Yep, 3D printing, all kinds of stuff.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so Dale was sort of the founder of Maker Faire and Sinezi Edits Make magazine.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And it's super geeky and yet it's sort of like popular science times 20.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And so they make all kinds of things.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then they have these events where people get together.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And, you know, this maker movement has gotten really bigger than you think.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's a great way to teach kids about science and technology.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Did you feel inspired after talking to these guys?
--:-- Jeff Bird: No, I'm a buyer. I'm not a baker.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I get it. I make noise. I make a lot of noise.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Well, people can find the Recode Decode podcasts wherever they find their other podcasts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks for listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon.com/todayexplained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And if you want to learn more about TransferWise, you can go to transferwise.com slash today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks for listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I'm Jeff Bird.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is a production of Vox.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And Vox Media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our producer is Jeff Bird.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And our editor is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon.com/todayexplained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And if you want to learn more about TransferWise, you can go to transferwise.com slash today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks for listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I'm Jeff Bird.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is a production of Vox.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And Vox Media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our producer is Jeff Bird.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And our editor is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon.com/todayexplained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And if you want to learn more about TransferWise, you can go to transferwise.com slash today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks for listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I'm Jeff Bird.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is a production of Vox.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And Vox Media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our producer is Jeff Bird.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And our editor is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon.com/todayexplained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And if you want to learn more about TransferWise, you can go to transferwise.com slash today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks for listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I'm Jeff Bird.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is a production of Vox.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And Vox Media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our producer is Jeff Bird.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And our editor is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon.com/todayexplained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And if you want to learn more about TransferWise, you can go to transferwise.com slash today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks for listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I'm Jeff Bird.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is a production of Vox.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And Vox Media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our producer is Jeff Bird.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And our editor is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon.com/todayexplained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And if you want to learn more about TransferWise, you can go to transferwise.com slash today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks for listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And I'm Jeff Bird.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is a production of Vox.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And Vox Media.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our producer is Jeff Bird.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And our editor is Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon.com/todayexplained.
--:-- Jeff Bird: And if you want to learn more about TransferWise, you can go to transferwise.com slash today.
