It has been a big year in terms of the gains made by professional female players. The French Open and Wimbledon joined the Australian and US Open championships in awarding equal prize money throughout all rounds to male and female competitors, and the WTA recently announced that from 2008, prize money for its year-end Championships would be bolstered to match the prize pool at the ATP Tour’s equivalent event.

The ATP and WTA have also worked together to develop a streamlined calendar that sees the tours meet up more often and award equal prize money at tournaments where this occurs. It’s a move that even ATP Tour players support, with many believing the decision to pay women equally is justified and good for the game.

This is fantastic. Women’s tennis is the world's premier female sporting competition, attracting the highest levels of fan interest, attendance and sponsorship of all professional women's sports. Female tennis players are also the most recognised and marketable athletes in the world, with players like Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters attracting a celebrity status and actually earning more off the court than their male counterparts. Fans’ overarching belief is that the events in which the men’s and women’s tour converge – currently only at the majors and a handful of other tour events during the year – are the most exciting and interesting, and was one of the main reasons behind the sports’ governing bodies move toward streamlining the tennis calendars.

'Equality still does not entirely exist, especially at the Grand Slams. Equal prize money is great, but when the status of the women’s event does not match the men’s and there is a difference in the number of sets played, it appears a token gesture'


But equality still does not entirely exist, especially at the Grand Slams. Equal prize money is great, but when the status of the women’s event does not match the men’s and there is a difference in the number of sets played, it appears a token gesture. Women in the game have often said men don’t deserve more for playing five sets, claiming prize money levels should reflect the entertainment value of the two events, not the hours spent on court by players. It’s a valid point – fans come first and foremost to see exciting matches, regardless of their length.

But why the difference? Why should women play three sets and men play five? This major disparity in the scoring structure demonstrates inequality, whether equal prize money is awarded or not. It is a fact the men have to engage in more gruelling matches because of the nature of a five-set match. Even if they win in straight sets and a female player must battle for three sets to get past an opponent, over the course of a two-week major, men will accumulate more hours on court.

For the men’s and women’s events to be viewed equally, they must play equally. Many of the WTA Tour’s top players have said they would have no problem playing five sets if the tournament so required. So why don’t they? Or conversely, why don’t the men play three sets? Tight three-set matches are often more exciting than a close five-setter because of the more ‘sudden death’ nature – players have less room to make a mistake or fall behind over three sets because they have less time to catch up, which increases the pressure and importance of every point.

Another marked difference between the men’s and women’s tournaments at a Grand Slam is the precedence given to the men’s event in terms of scheduling. This occurs particularly in Australia, where two of the men’s quarter-finals, both semi-finals and the final are scheduled at night in prime time on a major commercial network. In contrast, the equivalent women’s matches are played during the day when most people are at work. The women’s final on Saturday afternoon must also contend with the fact a large number of Australians are playing their own form of local sport and are not home to watch the match. Even during the first week, the night sessions begin with a women’s match and a men’s match follows – the women always seem to be acting as a curtain-raiser. Perhaps the greatest imbalance, and something that occurs at all four majors, is that the men’s final is always the tournament’s big finale.

Paul McNamee, the Australian Open’s former tournament director, strongly believed in the value of night tennis and believed these sessions rated the best on TV and were hugely supported by spectators. He was right – ratings for the men’s final have surged since it moved to the Sunday night prime time slot. But why have these sessions been exclusively reserved for men’s matches?

If the men’s and women’s tournaments are supposed to be equally valued (indicated by awarding equal prize money), some prime time night sessions must showcase women’s matches. Instead of designating the men’s semifinals to two blockbuster night sessions while cramming the women’s semis into one afternoon, one of the men’s night semis could be replaced with a women’s semi, and make the afternoon semifinal session feature a men’s and women’s match each. The tournament could perhaps use Canada’s model – just as the country’s two premier cities of Montreal and Toronto rotate between hosting the Canadian Open, the Australian Open would alternate each year between concluding the tournament with the women’s or men’s finals. Or maybe both finals could be scheduled back-to-back in one massive Sunday night spectacle. There are countless ways to address this scheduling disparity.

Parity is gradually growing. The US Open has for a number of years now scheduled its women’s final in Saturday night prime time, but the fact still remains Saturday night is not conducive to the highest possible ratings. Discrepancies still exist in the structure of the men’s and women’s games and are most notable at the Grand Slams, and these need to be rectified if the game is to continue truly acting as the pioneer of promoting gender equality in sport.