CHANGING THE GAME

In the lead-up to the Australian Open this month, sports journalist Amanda Shalala reflects on how tennis’s sportswomen from as far back as the 1920s, have used the court as an arena for change.

How tennis’s sportswomen past and present have used the court as an arena for change.

Suzanne Lenglen was about as badass as you could get for a sportswoman in the 1920s. The ‘first diva of tennis’ had a serious temper, she drank from a flask between sets, smoked and had many lovers. She scoffed in the face of customs and traditions, and played to win. And she wanted to look damn good doing it, too.

The Frenchwoman sported the designs of Jean Patou in her reign as the world’s best through the 1920s, where she became the first female player to ditch restrictive corsets and petticoats, replacing them with silk knee-length dresses, colourful bandeaus, painted nails and bright red lipstick. She even dared to leave her arms and ankles uncovered. As a result, she was at the vanguard of advancing the feminist cause through fashion.

“Her decision to go against the prescribed rules of the tennis association,” says Deirdre Clemente, professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, “was radical and the first taste for the tennis industry that not every woman is going to play along with the establishment.” Lenglen may have started the trend of giving themiddle finger to the establishment, but many other athletes have since followed with even bigger, bolder and braver acts along the way. Billie Jean King is one of those who completely changed the face of women’s sport. In 1955, the 12-year-old King wasn’t allowed to participate in a group photo of junior tennis players, because she was wearing shorts instead of a skirt. A chauvinistic dress code kick-started her lifelong campaign for gender equity. She created the breakaway Women’s Tennis Association, which completely changed the game for female players, and successfully lobbied for equal prize money at the US Open in 1973. By 2007 all four grand slams had pay parity.

More than 40 years after King’s original agitating, tennis is far and away the leader when it comes to financially rewarding its female athletes. No other sport comes close. All thanks to a pair of shorts.

Twenty-three-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams has become the modern era’s flag bearer for female empowerment in tennis. Williams, along with sister Venus, has been an outcast from the very start of her career, facing horrific racism and sexism throughout. She’s been called too masculine, accused of using drugs, and told she should compete against men instead of women. But in the face of the bigotry and ignorance, she’s refused to accept the hateful rhetoric.

In an open letter to her mother, the American wrote: “I am proud we were able to show them what some women look like. We don’t all look the same. We are curvy, strong, muscular, tall, small, just to name a few, and all the same: we are women and proud!”

Despite all the gains made over the years, many sportswomen, and particularly tennis players, are still unjustly judged on their appearance, with gross double standards at play.

At the 2015 Australian Open, after winning her second round match, Canadian player Eugenie Bouchard was asked by the (male) on-court interviewer: “Can you give us a twirl and tell us about your outfit?” The incident was as cringeworthy as it was gobsmacking.

And Williams got a taste of the old dress-code prejudice when she returned to the French Open in 2018, following the birth of her daughter, and wore a black catsuit.

She said it helped prevent blood clots she suffered after childbirth, but also made her feel like a “warrior princess”. French Tennis Federation president Bernard Giudicelli wasn’t a fan, claiming the outfit “will no longer be accepted … You have to respect the game and the place.” Forget about showing respect to a woman who’d faced death in giving life and was sending a powerful message about the resilience of the female mind and body. Never one to back down, Williams responded by wearing striking one-shoulder dresses resplendent with tutus at the US Open, designed by Off-White’s Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Nike.

Williams later told US Vogue the tutu “really embodies what I always say: that you can be strong and beautiful at the same time”. Clemente says the choice of outfit “snidely mocked century-old standards of femininity. It was Serena’s appropriation of an ‘ appropriate’ ensemble for the most feminine of all athletes – the ballerina.”

The obsession with what female players wear and how they look isn’t going to fade any time soon.

There’ll still be interest when Maria Sharapova rocks up to the US Open in a Swarovski-studded cocktail- esque dress designed by Riccardo Tisci, or when cheeky London skate label Palace collaborates with Adidas to fit out Wimbledon champion Angelique Kerber in streetwear-inflected gear.

We’re operating in a landscape where men hold most of the influential positions in sport, where men are making the decisions on what sports are covered and how, and where the championing of women’s sport is left to those women tenacious enough to rage against the machine. Not everyone is as willing to take up the fight as Lenglen, King or Williams.

But that doesn’t stop them from challenging the next generation to keep pushing for more, as articulated by King in an impassioned direct message to young girls aired before last year’s WNBA All-Star match. “You are now in a time that knows no limit, when your impact can resonate far beyond the arena … All you have to do is play like a girl.”

Despite all the gains made, many sportswomen, and particularly tennis players, are still unjustly judged on their appearance