Wimbledon has finally agreed to equal pay. The NY Times reports:

- After years of holding out against equal prize money, Wimbledon bowed to public pressure Thursday and agreed to pay women players as much as the men at the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament.

The U.S. Open and Australian Open have paid equal prize money for years. The French Open paid the men’s and women’s champions the same for the first time last year, although the overall prize fund remained bigger for the men.

My views are pretty much uniform on the equal pay issue which I had expressed in a detailed post about a year back:

I scoff at the idea (of equal pay). The issue is not about women’s rights. The issue is not about equality. The issue is about market worth. If women’s tennis is more sellable, I would not grudge it even paying more than men’s tennis does. I do not like that the other 3 Grand Slams have succumbed to the pressure tactics in one way or another, at one point or the other other.

Women’s tennis and men’s tennis are different sports. So if one has more spectators than the other, one gets more revenue and distributes more to the players.

Equality in pay is not the right answer. If the women attract more money, pay them more; if they attract less money, pay them less. I don’t see why equal pay should ever even come into the equation in the given scenario.

I am not talking about the drug here. Just to clarify. He isn’t putting any thing fishy in the bottle in the above picture either. How do I know? I have my sources.

Federer has been dominant on grass and we all know about that. He has now equalled the Borg record for consecutive wins on the surface. People are not satisfied though. The common point raised is - Federer doesn’t have to deal with as competetive a scenario as Sampras or Borg had to. Borg had his fierce rivals we know about. Even Sampras had guys like Agassi, Rafter, Ivanisevic.

Who does Federer have in comparison? Hewitt, Roddick. Big question marks over Nadal and Safin on grass. I feel this is a bit unfair. The career of these players isn’t over. We do not know how Roddick or Hewitt or some one else from the current era will be looked back upon. So we should wait a while before comparing Federer’s accomplishments on the surface with past greats.

It is no small feat to equal the record of consecutive wins. Sampras, for all his grass court prowess and great wins, couldn’t manage it. Federer has. It will be fascinating to compare the two players over all once Federer retires taking the full career of the two into account. Sampras didn’t win the French. He won X titles but not title A. On the other hand, Federer won Y titles plus B,C should not be forgotten. What will be equally fascinating will be matching up the two players on how they would fare on grass versus each other.

Federer did defeat Sampras in a Wimbledon at such a young age - a match which is now part of the folklore of tennis. But who would have won more had they lived in the same time? Could any of these two players, known for their domination, dominate the other over all? How would the almost complete Federer game match up with the unplayable Sampras serve on clutch points? For now, we should cherish that we can see Federer playing live and hope some one does up his game to create a memorable Wimbledon.

The pay issue in tennis has all the ingredients which captivate the mind - authority versus player, man versus woman. The issue has reached boiling point with the announcement of the All England club. Reports CNN:

The All England club announced on Tuesday that its singles winners would receive a four percent increase, but with the men’s champion receiving 30,000 pounds ($51,000) more than his female counterpart.

This leaves Wimbledon as the only Grand Slam which gives away less prize money to its champions. French Open announced equal pay for it’s champions earlier this year. However, they still give more money to the men compared to the women. The US Open gives it’s prize money down the middle though as seen by the 2005 prize money distribution.

The women are fuming. Former player’s Chris Evert and Billie Jean King’s views from the same CNN article:

Read the rest of this entry »