Equality my arse

I am going to open a right can of worms here but I don’t care, as that is how I roll. Whilst watching the news earlier the sports report came on, after all the good sports were mentioned, tennis came up. They said who had won through to the next round of the tournament that was being played and who they would be playing etc.

I am now going to wade into the debate about prize money (collective gasp). Yes I know I am that crazy I am going to do it. I honestly do not believe that women should get the same amount of prize money when it comes to the Grand Slams. In the minor events, yes, everyone should be equal but not in the slams.

Now before you all get on your high horse about this, I will say that I am all for equality, women should be treated as equals and all that baloney that I really can’t be arsed getting into now. When it comes to the tennis Grand Slams though I feel this is unfair. I know this argument raged on for years and the sums of money are huge and there was a huge difference but the men do a lot more work. They play best of 5 sets, women best of 3.

There was a match at this year’s Australian open between John Isner and someone else that went the full 5 sets and ended up something ridiculous in the 5^th like 28-26 or around that. Obviously this match went on a fair bit (about 7 hours I believe) and the schedule for that court was thrown out of the window. The woman’s match that was due on after that game was moved to another court and was over within the time it took to play half of the 5^th set. How much extra work and effort did those two players have to put in to their game, yes I know that was extraordinary but had they only been best of 3 you could have cut out 2 hours of that playing time.

The only way that a winner of the men’s and women’s Grand Slams plays the same amount of sets is if the man wins every match in straight sets and the woman drops a set I each of her matches. Everyone knows that isn’t going to happen. The men are going to have to do a hell of a lot more work than their female counterparts.

There is a huge gap in the women’s game. There are only a handful of players that are actually half decent with a chance to win something. These players tend to breeze through the early rounds, the commentators get excited if they see them sweating it is that easy. The men have it tougher. There are a lot of players that can beat each other and the little tennis I watch is always the men as it is more of a match.

I fully respect that the women put in as much if not more work on their training. They are full time, professional athlete’s that dedicate their lives to their sport. I am insanely jealous of that as well, but if they do as much work off the court as the men why should they not be expected to do as much on it to receive equal prize money? I bet if the situation was reversed we wouldn’t see many people up in arms about the men not getting as much money. Yes to equality no to absolute bollocks in my view. That is the thought for today, tune in tomorrow for something else. Laters