Good News For The Men?
If you follow tennis on the Internet, it was hard to avoid headlines blasting the news "Kuerten Threatens to
Boycott Wimbledon." An English journalist gently prodded the headline-creating quote out of Kuerten
after his first Master Series title of the year in Monte Carlo. The amiable Brazilian stated: "If the
players come to me and we say together, 'We're not playing, we're not happy about this,' I'm going to be the
one who is going to vote in favor of that." Hardly an inflammatory statement, but enough to get the
folks at the All England Club to spit out their tea following last year's protest/withdrawal of top Spaniards,
Alex Corretja and Albert Costa, due to the tournament's seeding system.
This week, the All England Club announced it was eliminating the seeding committee that often placed big
serving and/or serve-and-volley players ahead of those players more suited to on the clay courts. The
official reason for the removal of the committee was that its seeding decisions were "subjective and
open to misinterpretations." While we thank the AELTC for clearing that up for us, they dipped into
murkier waters saying that a new system will be "objective and transparent." How both of those
goals will be achieved outside of using the standard ATP Entry remains to be seen.
One option being bantered about is to have the Top 16 players according to the Entry System receive
seedings but then re-adjust the ordering based on their performance on the grass courts. But one wonders
where this would leave the current top two ranked players, Kuerten and Marat Safin? While Kuerten did
make the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 1999 the Brazilian has left the tournament fairly early in three other
appearances. Meanwhile, the struggling Safin has yet to reach the third round in two attempts.. Would
Kuerten be content with a #8 seeding or Safin let's say at #13? Probably not. The same can be said of
those who have done well on the grass in the past; seven-time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras is
currently ranked #4 on the Entry System, while favorite son Tim Henman is #9 and just out of a
quarterfinalist slot if the seeds held.
As far as Kuerten goes, any new arrangement may be moot as of this writing. An Australian website,
theage.com.au, published a story on Friday that Kuerten in fact will not play at Wimbledon. Upon returning to
Brazil after withdrawing from Barcelona with a thigh injury, the Brazilian was quoted: "I simply have
no desire to play there." Perhaps "Guga" can hook up with former Wimbledon-critic Andrei
Medvedev for a nice two-week holiday?
Nevertheless, a final decision from the AELTC will not be made until early June. I say the Wimbledon
officials should just put all of us out our misery -- including the clay-court players who will be harassed by the
media about a potential boycott until then -- and just say they are going to seed using the ATP Entry
System. While I personally favor specialized surface seedings (in a Mr. Ed column last year, I suggested
the French Open should move to seeding "by committee"), the only apparently fair and easy way out of this
controversy is just to go by the computer. The numbers do not lie. Let the seeded "dirt demons" fall off
early. Let the declining number of grass court specialists (even a non top-seeded Sampras) make their
usual charge into the final weekend. In the end, any re-ordering of the seed will in all likelihood make no
difference.
Bad News For The Women?
While the ATP appears to be winning their seeding battle, the WTA was dealt another blow as Wimbledon
(along with its sister European Slam, the French Open) maintains its policy of paying more to the men than
the women pay. The reasons for the continuing discriminatory payouts however were as slippery as a dewy
grass court.
Tim Phillips, All England Club Chairman, attempted to "spin" this year's increase in prize money in favor
of the women. The women are receiving a higher percentage increase this year, 6.5% versus 4.7% for the
men. Phillips noted the higher percentage to the women showed that Wimbledon was "recognizing the
increased depth and competition at the top of the women's game." But, are the women really
benefiting that much? The men have always received more prize money. So the impact is not nearly as
plentiful when one translates these percentages to actual dollars. In the end, of the total $12 million prize
money, the women's purse is increasing approximately $50,000 more than the men. In other words, just
less than what an ATP player will receive if he reaches the fourth round (by the way, a fourth round loser
on the WTA will receive about $8,000 less than her male counterpart).
If that was not enough, Phillips stated that the women generally earn more money than the men since the
top women players also compete in doubles. Again, some faulty logic is being used for the pay differential.
One need to only look at the current WTA doubles rankings it is increasingly untruthful. Former doubles
#1s, Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport both have seriously cut back their commitment to doubles.
Hingis has only played doubles 12 times in the past year, while Davenport has competed in doubles only 9 times in the
same time period. Venus and Serena Williams, ranked #11 in doubles, have only 4 doubles results, while
Jennifer Capriati and Monica Seles have hardly made a commitment to doubles with 10 and 5 appearances
in the past year respectively.
While admittedly wishy-washy on the whole equal pay issue myself, it is still amusing to watch the
Wimbledon trying to be politically correct in addressing the issue.