Women need five-set tennis matches to win fight for equality
After a bruising start, this ultimately morphed into a pointsscoring week for women’s tennis.
Quick recap: Novak Djokovic put both feet in his mouth by suggesting male players should be paid more, and by condescendingly praising women athletes for overcoming “different things that we don’t have to go through. You know, the hormones and different stuff.”
Sigh. Hardly the sort of forwardlooking, 21st-century leadership one wants to hear from the topranked man. Billie Jean King, Chris Evert and days of reflection helped to put him right. Djokovic backped- alled with a qualified apology.
Then, Raymond Moore resigned as the Indian Wells tournament director after suggesting women players should fall to their knees in thanks for male counterparts who have “carried this sport.”
Sexism coming back to bite men who should know better. Count this week as a 6-4, 6-4 victory for female players in their unfinished battle for equality. And it will remain unfinished just so long as tennis continues to make women play a different game from the men.
Not having women play best-offive-set matches, like men, at major tournaments is core to tennis’ equality problem, because it hard- wires gender inequality into the sport. At the Olympics, the equivalent would be 80-metre sprints for women, while men run 100. .
Truncated Grand Slam tennis for women suggests women aren’t physically and mentally strong enough to play five sets, though that is patently false. It fuels noxious arguments that women don’t deserve the equal prize money at majors they fought long and successfully for, because they play fewer sets than men to win it. In short, it is plain wrong. There will always be those who feel that men’s matches offer better value for money because they are more likely to run longer. That ignores the fact that a hard-fought 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 — to cite just the example of Serena Williams against Victoria Azarenka in the French Open third round last year — can be more memorable than a men’s 6-3, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 — the score of Rafael Nadal’s fourth-round win at Roland Garros against Jack Sock.
Forget the argument that best-offive matches for women couldn’t be shoehorned into cramped Grand Slam schedules. That assumes men can’t make space. Best-of-three for both men and women in early rounds of the showcase tournaments, followed by best-of-five for both in the later stages might work.
At least it would be equal.