A controversial cartoon of Serena Williams published in Australia's Herald Sun newspaper, which drew strong criticism last year, has been cleared as "non-racist" by the Australian Press Council.

Cartoonist Mark Knight depicted Williams having a tantrum during her U.S. Open final defeat to Naomi Osaka in September.

Per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN), Knight was criticised for using racist and sexist imagery in depicting the 23-time Grand Slam winner. But the Australian Press Council ruled "the cartoon uses exaggeration and absurdity to make its point but accepts the publisher's claim that it does not depict Ms Williams as an ape, rather showing her as 'spitting the dummy,' a non-racist caricature familiar to most Australian readers."

Williams, 37, called umpire Carlos Ramos a "thief" in her 6-2, 6-4 loss to Osaka at Flushing Meadows in New York, and he docked her a game. This occurred after Ramos gave her a penalty for receiving coaching signals and for breaking her racket.

She refused to shake hands with Ramos at the conclusion of the match.

"I'm here fighting for women's rights and for women's equality and for all kinds of stuff. For me to say 'thief' and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark. He's never taken a game from a man because they said 'thief,'" she later said, per Sky Sports.

Knight and the Herald Sun were heavily criticised for how they covered the events of the match.

The depiction of Osaka, who is of Japanese and Haitian descent, as a blonde-haired white woman was also widely condemned:

The Australian Press Council said it "acknowledged that some readers found the cartoon offensive," but it accepted the newspaper's assertion it "was not intended to depict negatively any race or gender and was drawn in a style that the cartoonist has drawn over several decades and was only intended to be a 'sporting cartoon' for the publication's local readership."

The New York Times' Ben Rothenberg felt the judgement was incorrect:

Williams' loss to Osaka was her second Grand Slam final defeat of 2018. She remains just one more Grand Slam triumph from matching Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 wins.