The conversation about men’s tennis versus women’s tennis has been a long debated topic. It is bad in the news this week with a vengeance after the CEO of Indian Wells, Raymond Moore, one of the biggest tennis tournaments in the world outside the grand slams, made some disparaging remarks about the women’s players.
He made comments about how the women have been riding on the coattails of the men and said that they are lucky. He even went as far as saying that if he was a women’s tennis player he would get down on his knees and “thank God” that men’s players, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, were born.
Those comments were way out of line and entirely not true. As a result of those comments Moore has since resigned as CEO, which was the smart move for both him and the tournament, especially considering women’s world number one, Serena Williams, ended her 14 year boycott of the tournament after some racial slurs were uttered towards her.
If I’m a women’s tennis player I have no qualms about boycotting a tournament that is run by someone who feels they are only there to cash in on the men.
I was speaking to someone about this issue the other day and me being a big tennis fan for a long time has known all of the major tennis players but the person I was speaking to noted to me that they knew about Serena Williams and even Maria Sharapova long before she had ever heard of Roger Federer.
Knowing about Williams first is obvious. She turned pro in 1995 and by the year 2003, when Federer won his first professional grand slam, Williams had already won five singles grand slams, six doubles grand slams, had captured a tour finals championship and was already world number one.
Sharapova on the other hand, did not win her first grand slam until 2004, when Federer had two grand slam singles titles, a tour finals championship and was number one in the world.
Since that famous Wimbledon victory for Sharapova, as a 17 year old, when she defeated Williams in a huge upset she has become a household name.
Interestingly enough, while Williams and Sharapova are more recognizable names to fans outside the tennis world it is still the men who hold down the top three spots in the highest paid player category, according to Forbes.
Federer sits at number one bringing home $67 million in 2015, with $8.7 million coming from on court prize money.
Men’s world number one, Novak Djokovic, was the second highest earner pulling in $48.2 million, with a whopping $21.6 million coming from prize money.
Rounding out the top five were Sharapova and Williams who brought home $29.7 and $24.6 million respectively. Sharapova claimed only $3.3 million in prize money while Williams claimed $10.6 million in prize money.
This while, men and women share equal prize money.
The equal prize money is another hotly debated subject with Djokovic just recently saying that while he appreciates the women for fighting for equal prize money he does not believe they should get it.
I’m inclined to agree with him on this one, to a certain extent. At the non-grand slam joint events the players should be paid equally especially considering they play at the same time during the day and play the same length of time.
The grand slams on the other hand I absolutely believe men should be paid more than women.
Why you might ask?
Because the men have to play longer than the women. In women’s tennis all tournaments are best two out of three whereas in the men’s game at grand slams they are required to play best three out of five. How can you argue that men and women should be paid equally when the men are required to work longer?
I liken it to a lawyer. If two lawyers were hired to work two different cases and one worked between two and three hours a day on a case and the other worked three to five hours a day. If both lawyers won their case would you be happy paying your lawyer the same rate for doing less work even though they achieved the same result?
While I agree that it is not the women’s’ fault for being asked to play less tennis I still do not think they should be paid the same. If they want equal prize money it should be equal match lengths as well.
In the end, Moore should be ashamed to have worded his comments the way he did, if he wanted to argue that men and women should not be awarded the same amount of money in prizes there was a way of saying it but definitely not in the way that he did.
