Monday 21 March 2016

Barbara Carrera....One of my favourite Badass Bond girls

Very Disappointing....And just not true Raymond....

 A subject close to my heart - Tennis: You would think that with the incredible progress women have made in the sport in the last few decades, that it just wouldn't be possible to hear or read opinions like the one shared by Raymond Moore CEO of Indian Wells recently (excerpt below) but unfortunately there are always those who allow themselves to be passed by when it comes to women's progress and those who deep down believe that women shouldn't really be doing sports anyway - the real tragedy is that ignorance of these characters doesn't seem to prevent them from gaining positions of authority. I'm not so much angered by these comments as disappointed. The man has made a fool of himself  with these ill-judged utterances, but for him to proffer such ignorance without a thought for the thousands of girls around the world dreaming of a career in Tennis or their parents who sacrifice so much to make it happen is completely irresponsible. My advice to female tennis players? Disregard this old Dinosaur - the way he has disregarded you!

Prize money has been equal in the men's and women's game for a while now - quite rightly so. Whatever you may think of women's tennis the fact is that Grand Slam tounament prize money in general is derived from ticket sales and the women's and mens draws have the same number of matches - When you buy a ticket, you buy it for a date or time and a specific court - you don't know which players you will be seeing and the likelyhood is, that you will see an equal number of male and female players in action - therefore the prize money needs to be equal.

You can argue that the men play best of 5 sets and women only best of 3, so there is a disparity and I have some sympathy with that view - however I would say that those limitations were set by the powers that be, a long time ago and it is now time to encourage the women players to start playing best of 5, after all there is no physical reason why they shouldn't...is there? In the meantime I still support equal prize money as both men and women players give 100% within the parameters set out for them.




"In my next life when I come back I want to be someone in the WTA, because they ride on the coat tails of the men," Moore said. "They don't make any decisions and they are lucky. They are very, very lucky. If I was a lady player, I'd go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport. They really have."