Should there be gender equality in Tennis?

Our society can, at times, seem fixated with gender equality issues, throughout every aspect of modern life. Gender equality in some sports seems to be levelling out, with sports such as women’s football getting more annual viewers and recognition.

In tennis, however, it is not quite the same story. There is clear gender equality in the way the major tournaments are timetabled and run in tennis, and the prize money from major tournaments has been evenly distributed since Wimbledon joined the other slams in 2007, but should this be the case? Recently, this debate has flared up after comments made by Chief Executive Officer of Masters 1000 Tournament Indian Wells, Raymond Moore.

The issue has been debated mildly over the last decade, but Moore commented that women’s tennis “rides on the coat-tails” of men’s tennis, and credited Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer for carrying the sport. Raymond Moore subsequently resigned the next day.

Men’s World number 1, Novak Djokovic stirred the controversy even further, by commenting that the prize money should be “fairly distributed”. Despite disapproving of Raymond Moore’s comments, the Serbian believes that the prize money should be allocated based on viewing figures and ticket sales- or in other words, who generates the most income used for the prize money.

This is the case when the men’s and women’s tour play separate tournaments, as male only tournaments give out more prize money in lesser tournaments, compared to women’s tennis.

However, tennis is one of the sports that does distribute prize money evenly at major events. In women’s football, Chelsea’s ladies team was awarded 5,000 pounds for winning the 2015 F.A. Cup, compared to 1.8 Million pounds for Mens football’s F.A. Cup winners of the same year, Arsenal.

Other factors in the debate are the differences in the sets played by the genders. At major tournaments, men play best of five sets, whereas women only play best of three, and many people believe this to be unfair.

I interviewed a level 2 tennis coach at South Ribble Tennis Centre, to get his views on the subject.

And I asked a similar question on twitter, with a similar result. The split was only just in favour of “yes”

However, the facts are that men’s tennis does generate more income. The viewing figures from 2015 prove this.

However, the support comes from all angles for equality, with Serena Williams, Caroline Wozniacki, Andy Murray and Billie-Jean King amongst some of the names to criticize Djokovic’s comments.

There is sufficient evidence to prove the case, as at last year’s US Open final, tickets for the Women’s final sold out before the Men’s final, and the previous year had over double the viewing figures for the final

I asked tennis coach from South Ribble if the women should have to play best of five sets at major tournaments…

Clearly, there is still a division of opinion on the ever contentious matter of gender equlity when it comes to sport, but it would appear that a minor majority, but a majority none-the-less are in favour of gender equality in tennis, although to fully achieve this, it seems many believe that the women should have to play best of five sets at major tournaments.