We should have been focusing on the tennis at Wimbledon – not judging the women’s bodies

Women in sport still face sexism in today’s culture. Watching this year’s Wimbledon female tennis players are continually subjected to sexism compared to male tennis players. Notice there is clear difference in air time between women’s and men’s matches. If you turn on the television, the most probable match on air will be a man’s. Why is a men’s tennis match more desirable to watch than a female’s match? Ladies tennis is just as entertaining as the men’s. Men’s matches are favoured to be scheduled and played on the bigger courts, which houses the biggest audiences which the television directs its attention. Wimbledon are continuing to shun women from the top courts. The BBC Trust revealed research on one day of last year’s competition that 93 per cent of the corporation’s television coverage was dedicated to the men’s game.

Last year tennis player, Caroline Wozniacki spoke out about Wimbledon as a bias to men on show courts. She expressed “a lot of us women feel like we deserve to play on the big court”. Serena Williams later backs Wozniacki saying “We’re still fighting on that. We’ve made some progress but hopefully we’ll keep making more progress. Hopefully we’ll get to the point where we’ll even have more featured matches. I don’t think it’s limited to Wimbledon. We have this problem at a lot of different tournaments.” It is an issue. The tennis players see it themselves.

On Wimbledon’s centre court, if weather permits accordingly, initially two gentlemen’s single matches and just one ladies’ single match are scheduled for order of play. Currently world number one in gentlemen’s singles, Novak Djokovic says “male tennis players should earn more money than their female counterparts because more people watch them play.” Djokovic, 28, said women “fought for what they deserve and they got it”, but claimed prize money should be “fairly distributed” based on “who attracts more attention, spectators and who sells more tickets”. There has been equal prize money between men and women in all four grand slams – the Australian Open, US Open, French Open and Wimbledon – since 2007. Djokovic’s comments utterly discriminate women, who have had to fight for their rights.

The media are more concerned with women’s dress than their game. Articles at this year’s WTA pre-Wimbledon party focus their attention and description on what the women are wearing and how they are wearing it. Ladies number one, Serena William is described as “is all leg in revealing slashed skirt at pre-Wimbledon party”. Journalists delve into the fact she is “showing off some major flesh”. So what.  Why is what she wore so important? At last year’s pre Wimbledon party an article by The Tennis Island slammed the worst and best dressed women. These women work to maintain their game and fitness and all the media are concerned about is their dress sense. What about the men are wearing? Is there not an ATP pre-Wimbledon party?

Out of interest I searched on Google “female tennis” and headlines appear to say “10 Sexist Female Tennis Players” and “16 Hottest Women Tennis Players in 2016″, whereas, the male tennis search showed results of men’s tennis rankings or famous male tennis players. Women in the sport and across all fields continue to be sexualised. Their bodies shouldn’t be measured against what is presumably hot or not. They are playing the sport because they love it, it’s their ambitious to win titles and matches. Give the credit these women deserve. The men are. They are praised for their glorious wins and stamina to defeat the best in the sport. Men are competing in a sport but so are also the women. Now let’s see that.