Women in tennis – a history of the struggle for equality
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Abstract
Women’s sport has development significantly in the recent decades, with professionalisation and increasing interest from the public visible in many disciplines. Nonetheless, the earnings of female athletes in virtually every discipline are lower than those of male athletes. Tennis is regarded as a sport at the forefront of fulfilling the equality aspirations of female athletes. The purpose of this article is to present some of the key moments in the history of women’s tennis, describing the struggle for a better status for female tennis players and the resistance these efforts encountered. It must be emphasised that there is still significant gender wage gap in tennis. Although an attempt has been made to explain these inequalities, it should also be pointed out that inequality is not only about wages. The article describes the different levels of tennis tournaments and the inequality of opportunity entrenched in this system, as well as the formal problems faced by female tennis players. The conclusions show that a lot has been achieved in tennis when it comes to gender equality, but nevertheless discrimination against
women can still be observed. The fight for equal treatment is not over and should be led, as history indicates, by female tennis players themselves.
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