During the course of this tournament, I tuned in at least 3 dozen times to watch a few minutes here and there.
There was certainly an abnormal number of lines-men, lines-women, and ball boys/girls “of color” assigned to Serena’s match yesterday, compared to other random snapshots of weeks of matches that I watched. One of the ball boys (normally appearing to be early to mid- teens) looked like he was about 25 years old, but he fit the bill in another racial sense.
I’m sure this was due to the “random” nature of match assignments of the tournament support staff. Wink, wink.
The only match I watched was the one where Williams was floundering badly early in the match against in unranked nobody.
The Open stopped the match to close the stadium roof due to “rain”. There was not rain present in the stadium, the other stadium with retractable roof (which wasn’t also closed), nor any of the other tournament or practice courts.
After the 8-minute break to close the roof, Williams came back to win the match. It was clear the crowd was on her side.
After the match, she commented that the break allowed her to “gather her thoughts and refocus.”
The entire tournament was fixed, and when their chosen social justice warrior minority lost, everyone was clearly disappointed.