The men worked way harder than the women at this year's Australian Open, says Paul Thomas.
Victoria Azarenka, photo Getty Images
Novak Djokovic had a pretty good payday at the Australian Tennis Open, earning $8340 for every minute it took him to win the men’s single final. But he had to work hard for the money compared to women’s singles champion Victoria Azarenka who pocketed $35,900 a minute for her demolition of Maria Sharapova.
The fact that both champions received $2.9 million, even though the men’s final lasted just short of six hours and the women’s lasted 82 minutes, raises the question of whether equal prize money really is equal and breathes fresh life into the contention that men should be better rewarded because they have to do more to earn it.
It would be easier to argue that you shouldn’t extrapolate from one tournament if dud women’s finals were the exception rather than the rule. This, though, was the third time in six years that the Australian women’s singles has ended not with a bang, but a whimper: in 2009, Dinara Safina caved in, and there was feebleness from Sharapova again in 2007.
If you thought Sharapova would be squirming with embarrassment at having won a grand total of six games in two Australian Open finals, you’d be wrong. This is what she said about her latest capitulation: “As in any sport you have your good days, you have your tough days, and you have days when things just don’t work out.”
This may be an acceptable attitude from, say, a sous-chef in a neighbourhood bistro or a professional dog-walker – people who do the same thing day in, day out, in complete anonymity and without pretensions or indeed aspirations to being anything special in their fields. Coming from the world’s third-ranked player, who had barely fired a shot in a Grand Slam final, it’s a dismayingly revealing statement. To put it in perspective, try to imagine the public’s reaction to an All Black captain who offered “shit happens” as an explanation for a 40-point loss to the Wallabies.
The case for equal pay is essentially vive la différence: not everyone wants to see men slugging and sweating it out for hours on end; many people prefer the grace and subtlety of the women’s game. (Similar claims could be made on behalf of women’s soccer, rugby and cricket, but for some reason they’re not.) Vive la différence works on another level. Presumably to the dismay of the feminists who fought for equal pay as a matter of principle, sex appeal is the magnetic force sucking money into women’s tennis.
The game has come a long way since “Gorgeous” Gussie Moran scandalised the All England Lawn Tennis Club by appearing at Wimbledon in a short skirt with ruffled lace-trimmed knickers. The committee accused her of “bringing vulgarity and sin into tennis” – this was 1949 – and dismissed Teddy Tinling, who had designed her outfit, from the role of official Wimbledon host, which he had performed for 23 years. (He was reinstated 33 years later.)
Players such as Ilie Nastase and Pat Cash gained female followings as much because of their looks as their ground strokes, but the young Andre Agassi in his teen idol/toyboy phase is probably the only male tennis player to have made millions in what was effectively appearance money. Then he grew up, went bald and became a gracious human being and a great tennis player. Who said there are no second acts in American lives?
However, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Anna Kournikova, who made a fortune out of tennis despite not winning a singles title in her professional career, is the role model for the leggy, pouting beauties coming off the Slavic conveyor belt. Blokes can hardly complain that the likes of Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic are making as much as, if not more than, the top men despite being markedly inferior tennis players and athletes, even allowing for gender. After all, it’s the male audience’s drooling appreciation of their physical charms that’s driving the market. And, besides, does anyone really want to watch five sets of women’s tennis?