Tennis and All That

While watching Serena play at Indian Wells, it struck me that, although she is eligible to enter up to 8 tournaments using her special ranking of number 1, she is nonetheless technically playing at Indian Wells as an unseeded, unranked player despite winning the Australian Open only last year so regaining the number 1 spot, whilst in the very early stages of pregnancy. I was surprised and shocked because having children is a normal occurrence and, I think, should entitle women to come back to their original spot in the world rankings ie Serena should have returned as joint number 1 with Halep. This would also enable her to be seeded in tournaments because seeding is dependent on actual, official world ranking so a special ranking doesn’t give you a seeding. Serena hasn’t even been away from the tour for that long, in the scale of things, and is returning quickly after a complicated childbirth. The current system places maternity in the same category as an injured player, which I t...

I’m watching Indian Wells and enjoying the matches. There are so many amazing matches it’s hard to choose favourites or single any out.   It’s great to see Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka back. I was impressed by the Azarenka/Watson match which was hard fought with both hitting the ball very hard. Azarenka won but went on to lose to the US Open champion Sloane Stevens whose powerful shots and accuracy proved hard to push back against. Serena also had a hard 2nd round match against Bertens who is so fast it’s difficult to get a ball past her but Serena prevailed winning 7-6 7-5. She also beat Diyas, ranked 53 in the world, in the first round with incredible cross-court shots, great returns and improved movement. Serena is looking great. Kvitova had to battle past Putintsteva, ranked 81, in a tough 3 set match. Her powerful shots and great volleys won her the match but maybe tired her out for the next round where she lost to Anisimova but Kvitova has had an incredibly succe...

Today is International Women’s Day. This year, 2018, the theme is #PressforProgress. The emphasis is on gender parity which is taking a long time coming! It’s a global women’s movement stretching across all continents, races, religions, sexual and gender identities, age, economic circumstances, classes and cultures. It’s not until all women are empowered, respected and treated as equals that we can say true parity exists. My #PressforProgress is to bring to light the visibility of women (which includes celebrating women’s achievements) and, in particular, to press for gender parity. It’s time! You can join me in pressing for progress by going to: https://marchingasonefeministblog.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/international-womens-day-8th-march-2018.html My press for progress in Sport is to see girls/women represented in all sports with an aim for 50/50 parity. However, for this to happen there needs to be more investment in women’s sport. Media coverage of women’s sport must ...

In this blog post, I shall focus on the relative lack of visibility of lesbian, bisexual and transwomen on the professional women’s tennis circuit and in particular, the first ‘out’ lesbian tennis player. Despite the prejudicial stereotype that sporty women are more likely to be lesbian, a stereotype that may influence girls to opt out of sport at an early age, there are shockingly few professional women in the history of tennis who identify as being part of the LGBTQI+ community. This is especially surprising in recent decades, when coming out seems to have a less negative impact for sportswomen, for instance with role models such as Amelie Mauresmo whose sponsors supported her coming out rather than dropping her, as was the case for Martina Navratilova. There is a misconception that “tennis is full of lesbians” as Margaret Court, one time tennis player turned preacher, claims and then she goes on to admit that “there were only a couple” in her day but makes it sound as though ...

February is Black History Month when we celebrate the contribution that black people have made to society and to admire their various achievements. It’s also an opportunity to encourage black athletes to join the professional sports world, especially tennis. In this blog post, I wish to focus on black women tennis players many of whom I have watched at tournaments eg Zina Garrison, Lori McNeil, Katrina Adams, Chanda Rubin, and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena. However, it all really started with one amazingly athletic, multi-talented black woman, Althea Gibson (1927-2003) who excelled at tennis, golf, basketball and became a singer, musician, actress and writer. She had trouble getting into tennis tournaments and at the start of her career played in all-black tournaments on the ATA (American Tennis Association). She broke the black glass ceiling when Alice Marble wrote to a magazine criticizing the USLTA, an all-white tennis circuit, from banning Althea from competing at t...

Today, 11 th February, is International Day of Women and Girls in Science but Sports Science is not included in the statistics to show the lack of women’s inclusion in this field. For more details about this day, see: http://www.un.org/en/events/women-and-girls-in-science-day/ It’s a two pronged problem in Sports Science. Firstly, women aren’t being researched so that means we have less information on, for instance, injury prevention and recovery in relation to women. Secondly, not many women study the subject and even when they do and become researchers they fall into the trap of researching men rather than women, perhaps in the hope that this will be popular with men and so give them an opportunity to be published in a prestigious Sports Science journal. Given that men are biased towards researching men themselves, this means that there’s even less research on female athletes which could be adversely affecting their success, progress and performance in sport. It’s an issu...

February 7 th is National Sports Day for girls and women 1 in the USA to celebrate women’s achievement in sport and to encourage girls’ participation in sport. I think this is a great idea. Billie Jean King’s foundation ‘Women’s Sports Foundation’ 2 is one of the 4 premiere organizations that are in this coalition supporting women in sport. This is something I feel very strongly about having trained to become a professional tennis player on a shoestring and with only the support of my mother who was also my coach. That’s a tough, impossible ask but I learned a great deal from it and I’m pleased I gave it a go even if not very successfully. I haven’t given up tennis, I’m still a professional player member of the ITF. It was a combination of severe financial constraints and family crises, bereavements, together with unfavourable conditions at Uni to put it mildly that disrupted my tennis career. After completing my Uni degree/life, I carried on as an independent researcher in m...