Serena seeded 25 at The Championships, Wimbledon 2018
Following on from an earlier blog
of mine1 I am delighted that Serena Williams has been seeded for
Wimbledon albeit not as high as I and others, including McEnroe, think she
should have been. Seeded at number 25 does not reflect her achievements at
Wimbledon. This is despite a player’s grass court record always being taken
into account when deciding seedings at this tournament irrespective of pregnancy.
As the Daily Mail reports, the All England Club “reserves the right to change
the women's seedings to 'produce a balanced draw' ”.2
Hopefully, the US Open will give
Serena a higher seeding, if not joint number 1 then at least a top 8 seeding. Katrina
Adams shares the sentiments I expressed in my blog post3 when she
believes that:
“forcing a player to come back
from pregnancy at a lower position than when she left would be like asking a
top executive to return from pregnancy leave at an entry level position in her
company.”4
Hence, Adams announced that the
U.S. Open will:
“revise the seedings if pregnancy
is a factor in the current rankings of a player.”5
This means that, Adams adds:
“with the policy now in place, it
will benefit all players who are considering starting a family.”6
Disappointingly, there are still
some who are not happy with the decision to seed Serena at The Championships,
Wimbledon (02.07.18 – 15.07.18).
One of these is Cibulkova who, on
suddenly changing her previous stance only 45 minutes earlier, stated:
“But it’s just not fair if there
is a player [who misses out] and it’s me now. I have the right and I should be
seeded and if they put her in front of me then I will just lose my spot that I
am supposed to have. I don’t know if something like this ever happened before.”7
I can appreciate Cibulkova’s distress
at losing her seeding but someone will be affected and it’s a case of seeing the
wider picture of women’s rights. There is no automatic right to a Wimbledon
seeding because this tournament takes into account a player’s record on grass.
This, so the argument runs, is to have a balanced draw in order that top seeds
don’t meet until the second week. This rearranging of seeds happens in the
men’s draw at The Championships. This year,
for example, Milos Raonic has been given a considerably higher seeding rising
from 32 (his current 2018 World Ranking) to 13 based on his 2016 runner-up record
at Wimbledon8. This begs the question: Why hasn’t Magdalena Rybarikova
been seeded higher this year given she reached the semi-finals in 2017 and was
runner-up at Birmingham this year? She is seeded 19 this year which is the same
as her WTA world ranking, so she receives no credit for her grass-court
achievements last year and this year. As for it never happening before on the
women’s side, I think I have a dim recollection it may have done when injured
players returned, prior to the rule change in the 90’s Serena refers to here:
“Unfortunately, in the 90s they changed the
rule whereas if you were injured [and] then you come back, you lose your
seeding. But they never took into account women that left No 1 due to pregnancy.”9
Other players, for example, Strycova,
have also come out against allowing returning mums their pre-pregnancy seeding.
Kvitova wasn’t too adverse as long as it didn’t affect her. This is disappointing
because I support the Czech and Slovak tennis players and cheer them on to do
well. I can’t help but have a soft spot for them. I was delighted when Pliskova
became number 1. Indeed, I would like to argue for players being a special case
if victims of crime, as Petra Kvitova was at the end of 2016. We were all shocked
and saddened by this violent crime. It brought back bad memories of the attack
on Monica Seles during a match in Germany. I feel strongly that Kvitova should
have been guaranteed protected ranking/seeding for a year following this
incident to ensure she received all the medical care and full recovery she
needed, both physically and psychologically. We are impressed with her return to
the game winning 6 tournaments in the space of just over a year. But this still
does not mean that players should have to make super-human efforts to regain the
ranking they held before they fell victim to a crime.
It’s also about creating a caring
environment. Sport is incredibly competitive, we all understand that, but that doesn’t
mean it should lose all sense of compassion and fairness. Hence,
sportsman/womanship is valued. After all, it isn’t fair that Serena had no
choice but to stop playing because she suddenly and surprisingly found herself
pregnant.10
Players have also benefited from her absence and seen it as
a golden opportunity to boost their ranking and results. This is all part of
the luck of the draw and circumstances of the tour so nothing wrong with it.
Players have even benefited to the extent of actively exploiting the difficult
comeback mothers have returning to the tour. For instance, Konta poached
Azarenka’s 2017 comeback coach while the latter was temporarily absent from the
tour during a custody battle over her son, Leo11.
So, it’s swings and roundabouts. Players have not been
overall disadvantaged by maternity breaks on the tour, quite the opposite. Post-break,
returning mums have the added responsibility of a child and so cannot just
focus on themselves, their training and matches. This makes the tour tougher
for them than the other players who do not have that responsibility. On top of
that, they have the added disadvantage of dropping low in the rankings/seedings
and, at the same time, being limited in how they can exercise while pregnant
and post-birth which further exacerbates their situation. Protected seeding is
not giving them a special status as such, it is merely redressing the
inequalities they suffer as a direct result of pregnancy. In Serena’s case, she
also had life-threatening complications as a result of giving birth and still
has on-going related health issues. Surely we should be concerned,
compassionate and supportive of her for all she has gone through. Anything less
than that makes the world a heartless one.
It’s about supporting women’s rights on principle, as Billie
Jean King did, not just on condition that it improves our own life at this
precise moment in time. It’s about improving all women’s lives and encouraging
the next generation of players to want to become sportswomen which a hostile
environment certainly won’t. #speedtheclock and #pressforprogress is not just
for International Women’s Day, but 365 days a year.
As James Blake, a former top ATP player and now tournament
director rightly points out:
“players should be "protected" and not punished
for taking time off to have children.”
"[Serena] had a kid, which we should all be
celebrating, so when she comes back there should be a grace period where she
can still be seeded"12
5Ibid
6Ibid
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