Tennis Hall of Famer and equal rights advocate Billie Jean King thinks the French Open ought to have scheduled extra girls’s matches for the Grand Slam match’s high-attention night time periods — each out of equity and since that’s the easiest way to deliver extra consideration to the gamers.
King additionally stated at a information convention on Saturday at Roland Garros that she thinks new match director Amelie Mauresmo will change that for 2023.
Only one of many 10 night time periods throughout this 12 months’s match featured girls.
When Mauresmo was requested about that on Wednesday, she stated it’s as a result of males’s tennis has extra “appeal” for the time being and it was onerous for her to seek out star gamers or high-wattage matchups within the girls’s draw to highlight.
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“It will stay that way if we don’t have more matches, that’s for sure,” King stated.
“You’ve got to put them when it’s prime time, and you have got to figure it out, and you want to give equal opportunity to both genders. Always. You always want to make sure you do the right thing by each person,” she stated.
“They should have the same amount of women’s matches as they do men’s.” The 78-year-old American was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987 for a enjoying profession that included time at No. 1 within the rankings and 39 Grand Slam titles, together with 12 in singles. She was inducted once more final 12 months together with the opposite members of the Original 9 who laid the groundwork for the ladies’s skilled tennis tour within the Seventies.
“If we keep treating us like second-class citizens, we will stay second-class citizens. You want to make everyone feels important. We should have more matches,” King stated, “but I think Amelie will take care of that next year.” On Friday, King obtained France’s highest civilian honour, the Legion of Honor, throughout a ceremony on the presidential Elysee Palace on the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron. She was acknowledged for her contributions to girls’s sports activities, gender equality and the rights of LGBTQ folks.
During a ceremony at Roland Garros between the ladies’s semifinals on Thursday, King was honored by the French Tennis Federation for her enjoying profession and her advocacy work. It is the fiftieth anniversary of her 1972 championship on the French Open.
