Is this fair? The weekend's events beg that question; check this out:
After nearly an hour-and-a-half of tennis racket, Victoria Azarenka had her first grand slam title and the world No 1 ranking.
Azarenka overcame a nervous start in losing the first two games to win 12 of the next 13 and crush Maria Sharapova 6-3 6-0 in a one-sided Australian Open women's singles final.
Compare and contrast this to the epic match from last night:
Novak Djokovic wore down Rafael Nadal in the longest Grand Slam singles final in the history of professional tennis, winning 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7 (5), 7-5 after 5 hours, 53 minutes to claim his third Australian Open title.
Djokovic sealed victory at 1.37 a.m. Monday local time and became the fifth man since the Open Era began in 1968 to win three straight Grand Slam finals.
The Men's final lasted a Grand Slam record of 5 hours and 53 minutes, and both players were absolutely spent at the conclusion of the match. Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal were on the court for almost four times as long as the Women's Singles finalists, and yet they take home the same prize money.
Where's the fairness in that? Surely, this weekend has shown once and for all that if the women want the same money as the mean earn, at the very least they must start playing five-set matches. After all, girls can do anything, can't they?
2 comments:
Interesting issue but maybe no simple answer.
Yesterday's men's final was an extreme example.
Less extreme, but it's also possible to have an easy three sets win in a men's final (6-0, 6-0, 6-0) after a hard fought women's final (7-5, 5-7, 7-5).
It gets complicated it you want to have pay per performace, pay per set, pay per point or pay per decibel. What do people watch the tennis for? Audio? Fashion? Bared torsos?
Pete, perhaps you can point to one major final in the last ten years where the sheilas worked as hard for as long as the fellows did.
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