Embattled Serena Williams denies she was being coached from the stands during the final of the US Open, despite her coach Patrick Mouratoglou saying he was sending her signals.
The 23-Grand Slam winner, lost by two straight sets to Japanese Naomi Osaka.
in the final, and the American was given a code violation for coaching, incurred a point penalty for racquet smashing and was docked a game for verbal abuse.
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She was fined $17,000 (£13,100) for the code violations.
“I just don’t understand what he was talking about,” Williams said.
Williams, who was aiming to equal Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles, said she had not received any tactics from Mouratoglou, telling the umpire she would “never cheat to win and would rather lose”.
Speaking to The Sunday Project on Australia’s Network Ten, she added: “I asked him (Mouratoglou) ‘what are you talking about you were coaching? We don’t have signals, we’ve never had signals’.
“He said he made a motion. So I was like ‘you made a motion and now you told people that you’re coaching me – that doesn’t make sense, why would you say that?’
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“I was on the other side. I didn’t see the motion. It was just a really confusing moment, I think, for him.
“What I’m trying to do most of all is to recover from that and move on.”