Wednesday 29 June 2011

Top Women Seeds - find an outside court!

Just to weigh in on the question of bias towards the top male players with allocation of Centre Court and Court One for matches at Wimbledon, I agree with Serena Williams - not that she and Venus have been hard done by this year - they were seeded 7 and 23 and each still managed to play three of their four matches on either Centre Court or Court One, only once being asked to journey to remote show Court Two.

The slap in the face for women's tennis can be seen if you compare the venues assigned the top four seeds for the men and the women.

Without any surprise, and for very good reason, Nadal, Djokovic, Federer and Murray played all their first four matches on Centre Court (11 in total) or Court One (5 in total).

However, top women's seed Caroline Wozniacki twice had to trek out to Court Two and only in her third appearance placed a footprint on Centre Court.
Second seed and last year's finalist Vera Zvonareva opened up with a Court One match before being banished to Court Two for the next two which were her last for the tournament.
Li Na, third seed only had the two matches but also experienced Court Two for one of them, a court which Roger and the others may very well not know exists.
Being fourth seed must be a curse if you are female - Victoria Azarenka started on Court Two, was asked to win next on Court Fifteen before someone remembered that she was a good player and her third match was on Centre Court.  Sanity was restored for the fourth round when she was thrown out to Court Three.

Yes at this moment the top four men command the audience and deserve the prime venues for their matches - maybe once really early in a tournament a remote show court might be worth a shot? - but the issue is the treatment of the top ranked women, who may not have the equivalent drawing power, but nevertheless deserve equivalent advantages in relative terms to the top men when it comes to playing on the courts where the quarters, semis and finals are played.

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