Serena Williams can make a good case for being the most dominant player in women's tennis since Martina Navratilova. She is also, possibly, the most churlish.

When Williams stole Sam Stosur's golden moment in the final of the US Open at Flushing Meadows on Sunday night, she not only tarnished her own legacy, she held her sport in contempt.

The quietly spoken, respectful Queenslander should have been allowed to cherish that final as her breakthrough performance. She won her first grand slam title against the best player in women's tennis and hit Williams off the court. It was a virtuoso display of power tennis, beautifully controlled and disciplined under intense pressure.

Stosur had reached the final after playing the longest match and the longest tie-break in the history of the tournament. She was not fazed by playing Williams, she was invigorated, honoured and ready for the match of her life. Afterwards, she said to Williams: "You are a great player and a fantastic champion and you have done wonders for our sport."

But the glow of her 6-2, 6-3 victory was dimmed for Stosur. Instead, the arcing light of the media was swung to focus on the loser, who verbally abused the chair umpire after an ugly incident at the start of the second set then later sought to justify her actions with a string of incoherent answers.

It is a fine call to judge whether her shout of "Come on!" in the nanosecond after her quite brilliant forehand really did distract Stosur as the Australian scrambled to get a racket on the ball at the other end. She was 30-40 and a set down. She was rightly proud of a wonderful winning shot. It was a crunch point – and it was taken away from her.

It almost doesn't matter if she meant to put Stosur off. But what does matter is that Williams broke the code of ethics covering that sort of marginal behaviour and then refused to accept the penalty.

In what universe of morality is it acceptable for an athlete to put herself above her sport? Unfortunately tennis is littered with such incidents. There is little respect for officials, in the chair or on the lines. They are considered irrelevant to the drama, objects of derision if things go wrong, punchbags for privileged sporting celebrities.

This is the original exchange Williams had with the umpire Eva Asderaki, a respected official who has been in the chair at many grand slam finals:

Asderaki: "It's her point."

Williams: "I don't understand."

A: "Because when you called out, she got distracted."

W: "Then maybe you should replay the point. I'm not giving her the game."

A: "This is not a replay. It's her point because when you shouted she went to the ball and touched the ball."

W: "Are you the one that screwed me over the last time here? You're nobody. You're ugly on the inside."

The personal abuse continued along those lines at the next changeover.

"We were in America last time I checked," she barked at Asderaki. "You're totally out of control. You're a hater and you're unattractive inside. What a loser."

This purblind sense of entitlement painted a sad picture of a fine athlete "out of control". But about half an hour later – time enough to reflect on her words and actions – Williams was unmoved.

In among the sycophancy that covers every American tennis press conference in suffocating honey, there were several tough questions. This is the verbatim transcript of the most pointed exchange:

Question: "You're one of our greatest champions and an elite athlete, a real role model. Do you think it's important for top-level athletes, even in tremendous heat of the moment, to treat refs and officials with respect?"

Williams: "Um, I don't know. I think that, you know, when you're an athlete, whether you're looking at a basketball player or football player or tennis players, these athletes, we train all our lives since I was three – and I lie about my age a lot, but I'm 29. [Smiling.] You know, we live for these moments, you know. Everyone lives to be, you know, in the final of Wimbledon or the final at the US Open. Whatever happens in that moment, you live for them and we breathe for them, and hopefully I'll be back for them."

At no point, does she want to engage in the debate. Her excuse is that her entire energy is devoted to the job in front of her, that nothing else matters: opponents, officials, rules, pesky media questions.

Under no circumstances, though, was she going to play by anybody else's rules.

The problem with that is that these are the only rules in town. Whatever she thinks, tennis is not the exclusive plaything of Serena Williams.