Women’s tennis seeing moremoms than ever
LONDON — When Serena Williams steps out on Centre Court to play Evgeniya Rodina in the fourth round Monday at Wimbledon, it will be a rare meeting of Mom vs. Mom.
Such matchups might happen with greater frequency as parenthood becomes increasingly popular on the Women’s Tennis Association Tour.
There were a half- dozen mothers in the singles main draw at the All England Club this year: 23- time major champion Williams, twotime major champVictoriaAzarenka, Rodina, Kateryna Bondarenko, Tatjana Maria and Vera Zvonareva.
Twomore— Mandy Minella and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez — entered the doubles event.
‘‘ At different points, we’ve had one or two mothers at a time,’’ WTA senior vice president for sport sciences and medicine Kathleen Stroia said. ‘‘ And then it’s grown to three or four mothers. And now we’ve seen that we have more, at present, than we’ve had in the past.
‘‘ There was Margaret Court. Evonne Goolagong. [ Kim] Clijsters. The difference is that now it’s certainly something that is becoming common.’’
Williams is competing in her second major tournament since having a daughter, Olympia, in September. Motherhood is an important part of her identity now.
Williams, 36, has spoken openly about a health scare during childbirth. About gaining weight while breast- feeding. About the joys of bringing her child to a tournament for the first time. About the difficulty of dividing her time between family and forehands. About the precedent the All England Club set by seeding her 25th, based on past success that includes seven Wimbledon titles, even though she was ranked outside the top 150 after missing more than a full season.
‘‘ It will be really nice for these women to take a year off and have the most amazing thing in the world, then come back to their job and not have to start from the bottom, scrape, scrape, scrape,’’ Williams said.
She tweeted over the weekend about missing the chance to see Olympia take her first steps because it happened during a training session.
What working parent can’t relate to that?
Azarenka knows it can be difficult to reconcile parenthood with a career. She skipped some tournaments, including the U. S. Open last year, while working out a custody dispute with the father of her son, Leo.
‘‘ I really want to spend every second with him,’’ Azarenka said. ‘‘ I feel guilty if I take 15 minutes for myself to stretch. I’m trying to run back to him and spend every second with him. So that balance, I think, is the tough one.’’