Raymond Moore the CEO of the Indian Wells tennis tournament – which likes to call itself the “fifth Grand Slam” – made a complete and utter fool of himself yesterday with vile sexist remarks about the women’s game. Here is what he said :
“When I come back in my next life I want to be someone in the WTA because they ride on the coattails of the men. They don’t make any decisions and they are lucky. They are very, very, lucky.
If I were 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.”
Oh dear where do you start with this crap? First of all the Federer/Nadal era in men’s tennis can be traced back to 2003 when Federer won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon. Women’s tennis was popular long before 2003! Secondly it is clear that if women’s tennis has been carried by Federer and Nadal then so has men’s tennis – and probably to a greater extent. Finally the remark ” ride on the coattails of the men” is wrong. That would suggest that if the women were on their own the public would not watch. Not true. At the Grand Slams and the big combined events like Moore’s tournament and Miami people come to watch the event regardless of the gender of the competitors. And a story from history proves it.
We go back to 1973. Not a good year for the UK – it started with us joining what is now the European Union and ended with the UK on a three day work week. Nor was it a peaceful year in tennis. In May Yugoslavia’s top player Nikola Pilic was banned for nine months by his federation which claimed he had refused to play in his country’s Davis Cup tie against New Zealand. On appeal the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) reduced the ban to a month – but it still included the first week of Wimbledon. The newly created players union of men’s tennis the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) was having none of that. It said that if Pilic was not allowed to play no one would do. As a result 81 of the elite male players boycotted Wimbledon. Twelve of the sixteen seeded players boycotted. As a result of the boycott of the 128 man field 78 had played in the Qualifiers (29 qualifiers and 49 lucky losers*.) The men’s event was full of unkowns.
Now if the reason people went to Wimbledon was to watch the elite men you would expect Wimbledon’s attendance that year to go through the floor. After all the men’s event was full of unkowns (the women were unaffected by the Pilic affair and had their full contingent of players there) so if the public only wanted to watch men the boycott should have wrecked Wimbledon.
It did not. Quite the opposite. The attendance at Wimbledon 1973 was 300,172. This up to that time the second highest attendance in the history of the Wimbledon Championships. That proved that people did not go to Wimbledon just to watch the elite men but they wanted to watch the women too.
Now I’m not saying they preferred the women. I don’t think they did. Had the situation in 1973 been reversed and the elite women had boycotted Wimbledon and not the men the attendance would probably have been just as high. What the 1973 scenario proved is that people go to Wimbledon to watch the event. Not the men. Not the women. But the event. And that will apply to the Australian, French and US Opens as well. And to Indian Wells for that matter.
And that is why Raymond Moore is an idiot. Most tennis fans like both genders. They like Federer and Serena. Novak and Victoria. Murray and Venus. The women’s game is not riding on the coattails of the men nor vice versa. They are both attractions for the public. Which is why
women deserve equal pay and Raymond Moore deserves the sack.
*A “lucky loser” in tennis is a player who loses in qualifying and then gains a place in the tournament when another player withdraws.
bainalan05 