For Women, a Bigger Share of the Brightest Stages at Wimbledon
On Wimbledon's Main Courts, a More Even Balance of Gender
By BEN ROTHENBERG
JUNE 29, 2014
WIMBLEDON, England — Lindsay Davenport has been coming to Wimbledon, the world’s most prestigious tennis championship, for more than 20 years, but she had never seen anything quite like the second day of this year’s tournament.
Davenport, a champion at Wimbledon in 1999, played the tournament 13 times before retiring in 2009 and had come to expect that women would consistently be given less time on the tournament’s biggest stages. Each day of the first week of Wimbledon, with few exceptions in recent decades, three matches are scheduled for each of the two largest show courts: Centre Court (capacity 14,979, according to the media guide) and No. 1 Court (capacity 11,393). Customarily, two are men’s matches and one is a women’s match.
The distribution is more equal at the other three Grand Slam events.
“As a female, I was very aware of those kind of things, that there’s only two women’s matches on Centre and No. 1 Court,†Davenport said. “If you didn’t have a tough opponent, even if you were No. 1 or the defending champion, you most likely weren’t going to go on those two courts.â€
But Tuesday, the ratio flipped unexpectedly: Two women’s matches and one men’s match were assigned to each court.
“The second I saw the schedule, I was thinking, What is going on here?†Davenport said.
Figures regarding court placement are not readily available, but according to the archive of daily programs in the Wimbledon library, the favoring of men’s matches on the largest courts is a longstanding tradition. In 1968, the first year Wimbledon was open to professionals, the two main courts featured three men’s matches and one women’s match.
The number of matches scheduled on those courts each day gradually decreased to three from four, and the pattern of two men’s matches and one women’s match per day through the first four rounds of the tournament held, with few exceptions.
Venus and Serena Williams, both five-time singles and five-time doubles champions of the event, have sporadically been sent to the tertiary Court 2 (capacity 4,063). Roger Federer, the seven-time men’s champion, has not played outside the top two courts since winning his first Wimbledon title in 2003; his chief rival, the two-time champion Rafael Nadal, has not done so since 2004.
“We’ll play anywhere — as long as it’s equality,†Serena Williams said. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s not about treating someone better because they’re a different sex. We’ve all been working hard since we were 3 or 4, and we all deserve equality.â€
Although women still played one match per day on Centre Court during the first week of this year’s tournament, they were twice given two of the three spots on No. 1 Court. By the end of the tournament’s first week, 16 women’s matches had been scheduled for the two main courts, an increase from the usual 12. Four additional women’s matches were moved onto the courts when scheduled play finished early — an unusually high number — achieving a total of 20, which equaled the number of scheduled men’s matches.
The schedule for Monday’s fourth-round matches put two men’s matches and one women’s match on Centre Court and one men’s match and three women’s matches on No. 1 Court; one of the women’s matches is the completion of a match postponed on Saturday, and another is a doubles match featuring the Williamses. (Venus Williams lost on Friday in the singles draw, and Serena was eliminated on Saturday.)
Stacey Allaster, chief executive of the WTA, said she first raised court placement with Wimbledon in 2002, but she said that she believed the effort reached a turning point the Saturday before this year’s tournament. That was when a meeting was held between Wimbledon executives and the WTA Player Council, which includes the longtime member Venus Williams.
“I had my own sit-down, but there’s nothing like the message coming direct from a Wimbledon champion — a five-time Wimbledon champion,†Allaster said.
Williams praised what she called the progress the tournament had made in player amenities and prize money before asking for a more even distribution of men’s and women’s matches.
“The tone of the conversation wasn’t really, ‘Oh, you didn’t do this and that,’ †Williams said. “It was: ‘Thank you for all the things you’ve done, and you’ve been so wonderful about listening to the players — both men and women — that we’d like to voice our concern on this arena.’ â€
She added: “I think the situation has to be win-win for everyone. No one likes to be pushed around, whether it’s a group or a person. I think if everyone can find a way that makes sense, then it’s a win-win. No one should feel like they’ve lost at the end of the day. I like to make friends.â€
Allaster called Williams’s tact “brilliant.â€
“The message was received,†Allaster said. “There didn’t need to be much more dialogue, because now we can look at Wimbledon’s actions. They were listening.â€
Williams, who reached the third round this year before losing to Petra Kvitova in three sets, said that her focus had been more on on-court successes.
“I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to win,†she said. “It’s twofold — being on the council and being a player. Obviously, when I saw the schedule on Tuesday, it was extremely unexpected. It was a breath of fresh air. It was a really proud moment, being a player at Wimbledon.â€
Williams had also been instrumental in representing women’s tennis players in discussions leading to Wimbledon’s decision to pay equal prize money to male and female competitors. The pay gap was closed completely in 2007, 34 years after the United States Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to pay men and women equally.
Richard Lewis, the chief executive of the All England Club, said that the increase in women’s matches on the show courts this year did not necessarily reflect “a dramatic change in policy†but rather was an adaptation to a women’s draw in which several top players were clustered on the same half.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story “It’s not like we’ve ever had a two-and-one formula that we just follow as a straitjacket,†he said. “There’s lots of other things we take into consideration.â€
Regardless, Williams said she believed the founders of the WTA Tour, the nine women who accepted $1 contracts to turn professional in 1973, led by Billie Jean King, would be proud of the continued progress.
“Equal prize money was huge, and then this also, I’m sure, means a lot to them as well,†Williams said. “Because it’s just a progression to where we all should be — standing on equal ground.â€
Williams also suggested that the issues women faced in tennis could reflect those in society as a whole.
“Unfortunately, the world is a place where there’s always inequality everywhere; there’s always someone looking to dominate someone else,†she said. “I’m not saying that that’s the case in tennis, but in general. So it’s not easy, especially when it comes to women, or minorities, in any country. It’s going to be a little bit more challenging. Hopefully, at some point it will just turn around, and we’ll all just want to be equal. But I think we’ve got a long way to go before that happens.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/sport ... ports&_r=1Bernie592
On Wimbledon's Main Courts, a More Even Balance of Gender
By BEN ROTHENBERG
JUNE 29, 2014
WIMBLEDON, England — Lindsay Davenport has been coming to Wimbledon, the world’s most prestigious tennis championship, for more than 20 years, but she had never seen anything quite like the second day of this year’s tournament.
Davenport, a champion at Wimbledon in 1999, played the tournament 13 times before retiring in 2009 and had come to expect that women would consistently be given less time on the tournament’s biggest stages. Each day of the first week of Wimbledon, with few exceptions in recent decades, three matches are scheduled for each of the two largest show courts: Centre Court (capacity 14,979, according to the media guide) and No. 1 Court (capacity 11,393). Customarily, two are men’s matches and one is a women’s match.
The distribution is more equal at the other three Grand Slam events.
“As a female, I was very aware of those kind of things, that there’s only two women’s matches on Centre and No. 1 Court,†Davenport said. “If you didn’t have a tough opponent, even if you were No. 1 or the defending champion, you most likely weren’t going to go on those two courts.â€
But Tuesday, the ratio flipped unexpectedly: Two women’s matches and one men’s match were assigned to each court.
“The second I saw the schedule, I was thinking, What is going on here?†Davenport said.
Figures regarding court placement are not readily available, but according to the archive of daily programs in the Wimbledon library, the favoring of men’s matches on the largest courts is a longstanding tradition. In 1968, the first year Wimbledon was open to professionals, the two main courts featured three men’s matches and one women’s match.
The number of matches scheduled on those courts each day gradually decreased to three from four, and the pattern of two men’s matches and one women’s match per day through the first four rounds of the tournament held, with few exceptions.
Venus and Serena Williams, both five-time singles and five-time doubles champions of the event, have sporadically been sent to the tertiary Court 2 (capacity 4,063). Roger Federer, the seven-time men’s champion, has not played outside the top two courts since winning his first Wimbledon title in 2003; his chief rival, the two-time champion Rafael Nadal, has not done so since 2004.
“We’ll play anywhere — as long as it’s equality,†Serena Williams said. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s not about treating someone better because they’re a different sex. We’ve all been working hard since we were 3 or 4, and we all deserve equality.â€
Although women still played one match per day on Centre Court during the first week of this year’s tournament, they were twice given two of the three spots on No. 1 Court. By the end of the tournament’s first week, 16 women’s matches had been scheduled for the two main courts, an increase from the usual 12. Four additional women’s matches were moved onto the courts when scheduled play finished early — an unusually high number — achieving a total of 20, which equaled the number of scheduled men’s matches.
The schedule for Monday’s fourth-round matches put two men’s matches and one women’s match on Centre Court and one men’s match and three women’s matches on No. 1 Court; one of the women’s matches is the completion of a match postponed on Saturday, and another is a doubles match featuring the Williamses. (Venus Williams lost on Friday in the singles draw, and Serena was eliminated on Saturday.)
Stacey Allaster, chief executive of the WTA, said she first raised court placement with Wimbledon in 2002, but she said that she believed the effort reached a turning point the Saturday before this year’s tournament. That was when a meeting was held between Wimbledon executives and the WTA Player Council, which includes the longtime member Venus Williams.
“I had my own sit-down, but there’s nothing like the message coming direct from a Wimbledon champion — a five-time Wimbledon champion,†Allaster said.
Williams praised what she called the progress the tournament had made in player amenities and prize money before asking for a more even distribution of men’s and women’s matches.
“The tone of the conversation wasn’t really, ‘Oh, you didn’t do this and that,’ †Williams said. “It was: ‘Thank you for all the things you’ve done, and you’ve been so wonderful about listening to the players — both men and women — that we’d like to voice our concern on this arena.’ â€
She added: “I think the situation has to be win-win for everyone. No one likes to be pushed around, whether it’s a group or a person. I think if everyone can find a way that makes sense, then it’s a win-win. No one should feel like they’ve lost at the end of the day. I like to make friends.â€
Allaster called Williams’s tact “brilliant.â€
“The message was received,†Allaster said. “There didn’t need to be much more dialogue, because now we can look at Wimbledon’s actions. They were listening.â€
Williams, who reached the third round this year before losing to Petra Kvitova in three sets, said that her focus had been more on on-court successes.
“I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to win,†she said. “It’s twofold — being on the council and being a player. Obviously, when I saw the schedule on Tuesday, it was extremely unexpected. It was a breath of fresh air. It was a really proud moment, being a player at Wimbledon.â€
Williams had also been instrumental in representing women’s tennis players in discussions leading to Wimbledon’s decision to pay equal prize money to male and female competitors. The pay gap was closed completely in 2007, 34 years after the United States Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to pay men and women equally.
Richard Lewis, the chief executive of the All England Club, said that the increase in women’s matches on the show courts this year did not necessarily reflect “a dramatic change in policy†but rather was an adaptation to a women’s draw in which several top players were clustered on the same half.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story “It’s not like we’ve ever had a two-and-one formula that we just follow as a straitjacket,†he said. “There’s lots of other things we take into consideration.â€
Regardless, Williams said she believed the founders of the WTA Tour, the nine women who accepted $1 contracts to turn professional in 1973, led by Billie Jean King, would be proud of the continued progress.
“Equal prize money was huge, and then this also, I’m sure, means a lot to them as well,†Williams said. “Because it’s just a progression to where we all should be — standing on equal ground.â€
Williams also suggested that the issues women faced in tennis could reflect those in society as a whole.
“Unfortunately, the world is a place where there’s always inequality everywhere; there’s always someone looking to dominate someone else,†she said. “I’m not saying that that’s the case in tennis, but in general. So it’s not easy, especially when it comes to women, or minorities, in any country. It’s going to be a little bit more challenging. Hopefully, at some point it will just turn around, and we’ll all just want to be equal. But I think we’ve got a long way to go before that happens.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/sport ... ports&_r=1Bernie592
