kim jonghyun. we are so proud of you. you were so brave and beautiful and kind and selfless and strong. you’ll continue to be all of these and more even though you are not physically with us anymore. today is a sad day and every 18th moving forward (especially this year) is going to be just as difficult and sad, and as crushed as i still am personally right now i wanted to share this little beam of positivity. it’s not the easiest to do but it’s genuinely how i feel. i’m never going to understand why someone so incredible, why someone who was so one in a million had to go through as much pain as you did, but i guess sometimes life does not make sense and it is rarely fair, even to those who deserve it the most. maybe it is true when they say that those who are needed the most in the world are the ones who are taken too soon. i love you, i love you, i love. we all love you. we all miss you. we’re never going to stop missing you.
I followed this US Open up until the the final match that I ended up missing today. After seeing what transpired, I’m glad I did. I just knew it was gonna be a tough, nail-biting, exciting match between two Black women—one who’s the greatest athlete of all-time and the other who’s a young, hungry, explosive player who’s competing against her idol—who were gonna put on an amazing, historic show.
That didn’t happen.
Carlos Ramos, the asshole umpire who called a coaching violation against Serena during her match against Naomi Osaka at the US Open Final, called the same thing against Venus during her match against Alize Cornet at the French Open in 2016. Both stood their ground and refuted it. He’s doesn’t do it to the men, even after Rafael Nadal threatened him at the 2017 French Open.
Many of the fans were already on edge because they were rooting for Serena. To bring his bullshit to the game, intensify an uneasy atmosphere, and cause Naomi’s first win to be overshadowed by it to the point that she tearfully apologized during her speech to the crowd almost as if she was sorry for winning, is ri-fucking-diculous.
Serena is not a sore loser, which people who dislike her always peg her to be. She’s a gracious competitor. Always. She demonstrated it again today. She embraced Naomi, calmed down the crowd, and made sure was Naomi wasn’t only celebrated, but felt celebrated.
Sad it had to all go down like this…
Naomi, who’s Japanese-Haitian American and representing the country of Japan, is the first Japanese to win a Grand Slam singles title. That woman is gonna go so far.