[Closed] Women's tennis.... A bit meh?

I think the problem with women's sport is that they generally lack strength in depth

Agree with this, there are some great womens MMA matches but the depth is lacking in the weight classes, so outside a few great individuals you land up with big miss matches, that will hopefully change over time though

Venus Williams is having a shocker!

They just need to focus on more appropriate sports, jelly wrestling, beach volleyball, speed ironing, endurance breastfeeding, 5a side chit chat, that kind of thing

Olympic moaning

and erm... you brought periods up, so, you know, we damn well know about it now

Actually it wasn't, Teamhurtmore piped up with that on the previous page.

Ah, yet another thread demonstrating that most contributors to threads on STW are grade one a'holes.

Agreed - go have a word with yourselves, eh? Some of the attitudes on display here are utterly pathetic.

A portrait of the average contributor to this thread:

[img] [/img]

Because you have a differing opinion to someone else it make you an a hole... ok

I'm right though 😉

Two words:

Eugenie Bouchard.

Wouldn't mind playing some mixed doubles with her.

<Sid James laugh>

😀

Nah women have just arrived late to a party thats over. Its not womans sport that is the problem.

Sport is dead.

Mens doubles final, five set thriller on court for over 4 and 1/2 hours.

Women doubles final, 2 sets on court for 50 minutes.

Outrageous that they get paid the same for a vastly interior product. Equality should mean just that, they should play 5sets like the men for equal pay.

I wonder what it is you want from Women's Sport?

Do you want them to be more glamorous, heels and makeup, nails done maybe and low cut tops?
Do you want them more sexualised? Maybe that would keep the interest.

It's not like Women's Tennis hasn't been around for a while, gone through all the criticism for being boring and dull and not as physically demanding as the Men's game is it. Nooooo, like never... maybe this time every year perhaps?
Probably.

Women's [b]anything[/b] has been challenged, is constantly challenged, for being different to Men's [i]anything[/i]

It's odd that today, with all our education and information available, gender training in the workplace, schools promoting skills rather than Sex, that Women's rights to "equal" Men's keep popping up again and again.

You'd think the message would have gotten through by now, it seems it's either missed it's target audience or the message is corrupted.

Back to the Game, quite where the grunts came from and the fashion to follow the trend I've no idea, there are initiatives in place to calm the grunt and it's working to some extent but clearly for the hard of thinking it's not enough. Most TV sets these days come with volume controls, we could try that I suppose.
Equal Sets for Equal Pay has been, and will be, constantly brought up. But the Game isn't some production piece work line.
The Pay initiative is there because the training and physical effort, medical and physical needs are the same, hotels and support networks are the same as Men's as they are for Women's Tours.

I like playing Tennis, not a huge fan of watching it. I've been to Wimbledon twice and found myself walking amongst the warm up or lower ranked games out back, leaving the big games to those that want to either be seen on TV or say "I was there when.."

This thread makes me sad.

This bit of the thread made me laugh...

NExt time try pulling it, see what she says...

But, like, don't do that, kids!

So women can fight in front line combat roles in the army, but can't play 5 sets of tennis like the men. ? Where's the equity in that.

Treat everyone the same, No gender weighting.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/sep/07/paralympic-stars-earning-potential-soar

Even more outrageous! I mean, they don't even use their own limbs.

Back to the Game, [b]quite where the grunts came from and the fashion to follow the trend I've no idea,[/b] there are initiatives in place to calm the grunt and it's working to some extent but clearly for the hard of thinking it's not enough. Most TV sets these days come with volume controls, we could try that I suppose.

I remember Tracy Austin as a 15 year old used to make quite a lot of noise on court. I also remember when Navratilova openly complained about Monica Seles' grunting.

Do you want them to be more glamorous, heels and makeup, nails done maybe and low cut tops?
Do you want them more sexualised? Maybe that would keep the interest.

Quite the opposite: One of the things that annoys me about the Williams sisters is that they seem to treat the court as a fashion show, almost as much as a sporting challenge.

That aside: I agree that women should play 5 sets, they should have equal prize money, and they should have parity in coverage. I can't believe we are still discussing this in 2017.

It's not just tennis, though: Women's road cycling features shorter races, which leads me to wonder what evidence they are using to justify reducing the length of time women are allowed to compete for. Does it simply come down to the fact that they don't think audiences are interested enough to stay for the full duration?

Having said that: Women race over exactly the same triathlon and Ironman courses as the men.

Bikebouy - a long espousal of women's [b]equal rights[/b] then an attempt to airily dismiss women's [b]equal responsibilites[/b] with:

But the Game isn't some production piece work line.

I guess one of the challenges for women's tennis is that few would be able to sustain a 5 set match. That would bring us back to the lack of depth in the field.

Having said that, a look at the WTA rankings suggests that it's much more open than the men's at present. Look at how many of the top 10/20 women have been #1 at some point.

Women should play 5 sets, race over the same distances etc. Its a no-brainer.

Also women could do 5 sets. No doubt in my mind.

bikebouy - Member

I wonder what it is you want from Women's Sport?

Do you want them to be more glamorous, heels and makeup, nails done maybe and low cut tops?
Do you want them more sexualised? Maybe that would keep the interest.

It's not like Women's Tennis hasn't been around for a while, gone through all the criticism for being boring and dull and not as physically demanding as the Men's game is it. Nooooo, like never... maybe this time every year perhaps?
Probably.

Women's anything has been challenged, is constantly challenged, for being different to Men's anything

It's odd that today, with all our education and information available, gender training in the workplace, schools promoting skills rather than Sex, that Women's rights to "equal" Men's keep popping up again and again.

You'd think the message would have gotten through by now, it seems it's either missed it's target audience or the message is corrupted.

Exactly. The problem with women's sport, similarly men's sport is that they exist. All they do is suppress gender fluidity and perpetuate the cis gender, binary white male patriarchy. Gender is a choice, not a biological straight jacket, ergo people should be free to compete in sport as expressions of themselves not some faux societal gender construct. The emphasis on winning should be removed as this is a prime example of machismo braggadocio - a symptom of the toxic masculinity, and moreover the conceptual penis as a social construct, which infects our society and destroys our ability to express our non binary selves. Sports where strength and speed matter should be banned, since men are only faster and stronger through societal conditioning as a result of the conceptual isomorphism of the penis.

Where strength and speed cannot be completely eliminated hormone balancing should be mandatory so that the societal advantages given to boys are neutralised with exogenous female hormones, and vice versa. The obvious neccessity of these measures can be seen in phrases regarding toxic hypermasculine competitiveness like “pissing contest,” in which winners are determined by which hypermasculine person is able to project a stream of urine the furthest, often from a height, and “dick-measuring contest,” which needs no elaboration to unveil the direct impact of performative machismo braggadocio competitiveness which leads directly to the ugliest expressions of the human experience such as rape, murder, global capitalism and war.

What's the issue - at SW19 the pay for women and men is the same. Why? Because they can get the same bums on seats to watch the matches.

Step away from majors and what are the relative spectators numbers and why? Hence the pay differential. It's not rocket science. Prize money depends on the numbers you attract to watch and sponsorship. It's not a charity.

As I said above, I often prefer watching ladies sport because it is close to the game that I play/aspire to play to. Would I pay the same, sometimes yes. Are the rest of the crowds at ladies'events big. No, not always. Simple isn't it...?

Jimjam - 🙂

Oh come on, JimJam deserves more than that ^^^^^.
I mean, if there were prize money for making people laugh on internet forums, he'd be a millionaire.
I've not got a single uncracked rib left after his hilarious post.
What a guy!!!

Neither men's finalist given any lovely flowers. What's going on?

First blood Rog

Well the men have certainly earned their money since the semis. TEN hugely entertaining sets of tennis over the last three games. Good on them.

Half the people on this thread will be upset about Dr Who! Just will not be worth watching for them! (Of course half means a few)

[i]Half the people on this thread will be upset about Dr Who[/i]

The 10 year olds?

^^ mentality you mean .... then yes

The problem with women's tennis isn't that they're women, it's the Williams sisters. Meant in the nicest possible way - when you get a dominant player or two who can batter their opponent off the court, it makes for rubbish games. See Sampras etc. Men's tennis is better now because of Federer and Murray. They play in a way that's better to watch. It'll change in time, these things always do.

Konta's games were cracking to watch. I'd rather watch her than Djokovich any day.

I tend to agree. But with the odd exception as a spectator I feel the same about most women's sport. It's a bit if an Elephant in the room but that's how I feel

The elephant in the room is WHY women's sport is not as good.

Why are women rugby players amateurs?
Why are there so few women rugby players?
Why is there no women's Tour de France of any consequence?

etc etc.

It's because of latent sexist attitudes in society that see women's sport as inferior. People don't watch it because it's not on, it's not billed the same, standards are lower because there's less money in it because it's not on and it's not watched as much. Little girls have to struggle to find sporting role models and to compete in high quality competitions. You don't see little boys short of sporting role models do you?

Sports organisers need to put the events on, telly companies need to show them - to lead the assault on a particularly sexist area of society. They are doing it pretty well with Paralympic sport - C4 are quite rightly making a big deal out of it and now many para athletes are household names. They may not be as fast running on prosthetic legs but that doesn't really matter when they are racing each other does it?

Women's rugby is worse because it's amateur.

I really like Womens tennis, mostly because it isn't so serve dominated, I do find it great to watch.

It's because of latent sexist attitudes in society that see women's sport as inferior. People don't watch it because it's not on, it's not billed the same, standards are lower because there's less money in it because it's not on and it's not watched as much. Little girls have to struggle to find sporting role models and to compete in high quality competitions. You don't see little boys short of sporting role models do you?

EDIT-Just read jimjams, he said what I wanted to. My post can be safely ignored even more than it was going to be.

Look at how spectacular the mens DH is

I agree that some womens sports are much less spectacular to watch. But not many. And even in that case the racing can still be just as close and exciting.

Hilarious that male club hobbyists claim they'd take points off one of the top females in tennis. 😆 Yeah, I suppose the ladies might have the odd double fault. Plenty of Walter Mitty types around.

What sports would be left if we banned ones that relied onspeed or strength? They'd be a lot of showjumping and darts on Sky Sports!

Is target shooting multi-gender?

Edit:

Men's Shooting was one of the nine events at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, in 1896. In the Paris Games in 1900, live pigeons were used as moving targets. After the 1900 games, the pigeons were replaced with clay targets. In 1907, the International Shooting Sport Federation came into existence and brought some standardizations to the sport.

When shooting was reintroduced in 1932, it consisted of only two events. From this, the number of events have increased steadily until reaching the 2000–2004 maximum of seventeen events. The 2008 games had only fifteen. [b]Events marked as "Men's" were actually open events from 1968 until 1980 (and in shotgun events until 1992). Two women won medals in such mixed events: Margaret Murdock, silver in Rifle 3 positions (1976) and Zhang Shan, gold in Skeet (1992).[/b]

Only two female medallists. I'd have expected more in an "Open" competition

Whilst I'd put shooting down more as a skill sport, I still think there's an element of strength certainly in the 3 position events. Not sure if theres advantage for skeets side, never done that much

I know Olympic gold winner Malcolm Coopers wife, Sarah, was one of the best shooters in the UK regardless of sex.

[quote=deadlydarcy ]Hilarious that male club hobbyists claim they'd take points off one of the top females in tennis. Yeah, I suppose the ladies might have the odd double fault.

Only if they got bored. They could probably take 10mph off their serve to make sure it went in and still ace anybody on here.

It is not a sexist attitude, the simple fact is that in many sports there is a much smaller talent pool because far fewer girls play the sport, they do other things instead like ballet - how many boys do ballet?

Men's Wimbledon became better to watch because they detuned it to make it slower, thus there are longer rallies now. At the moment Men's tennis is amazing as you have got three of the greatest players of all time playing. Women's tennis is more open, when Serena is not around or off form, but people don't know the players as well as therefore aren't "invested in them". It is either Serena or ABS. Before the detune, many prefer watching the women's game because it wasn't as serve dominated.

I have a only child who is a daughter, so I am keen to push women's sport, indeed I help coach cricket and hockey. In Hockey, we have more girls than boys but men's hockey is faster because men are faster and stronger. In cricket, we have far more boys, but the beauty of cricket as a sport is whilst physical ability is helpful, it is not a pre-requisite, so girls can play great cricket and you see the best mixing it up with the men. I'm off to the final of the Women's World Cup next week, it will be a decent watch a bit like cricket in the 80s without the very fast bowlers.

Hilarious that male club hobbyists claim they'd take points off one of the top females in tennis. Yeah, I suppose the ladies might have the odd double fault. Plenty of Walter Mitty types around.

Who are you referring to DD? Haven't seen any on here, have you?

It's because of latent sexist attitudes in society that see women's sport as inferior. People don't watch it because it's not on, it's not billed the same, standards are lower because there's less money in it because it's not on and it's not watched as much. Little girls have to struggle to find sporting role models and to compete in high quality competitions. You don't see little boys short of sporting role models do you?

Speaking as a father of a 'sporty' girl I honestly think this is complete bollocks. It's nothing to do with "sexist attitudes" it's inferior because it is - not because of money, billing or how many people are watching it, it's because women aren't as good at any given sport - look at the record books and men are ~10% better across pretty much all sports. You can smash as much testosterone down female athletes and they can turn their phones off when the inspectors come knocking as much as they want but they simply aren't as good as the men. And when it comes to pro sport if i'm paying to watch it, I want to be in awe, not watching performances that club athletes that I know can churn out.

They don't have to struggle to compete in high quality competitions, my daughter has competed at international level in 2 different sports in the last few weeks and her best friend has competed in another 2, boys in her peer group have a much more competitive pool to beat to get anywhere close to that level.

And as for female role models: again, this is pure nonsense; there are plenty around, my daughter has posters of KJT, Simone Biles and Gabi Butler on her wall.

She's young enough to be able to compete with her male peers (they're YR6) which is why I had a group of them chasing me around the parkrun on Saturday with the aim of being the first one in their class to go <20 (2 girls and 2 boys did it out of the 7 FWIW) but ultimately she knows that even if she gets to Olympic standard for her chosen sport that 'average' men will beat her. It doesn't make her achievements less worthy, but I can fully understand why people wouldn't want to watch her.