Dark Ages Over: Wimbledon FINALLY pays women's winner same purse as men's. nt

[Captain Hilts]

[Awsi Dooger]

1. I was for this until very recently but now I'm not so sure

The women's game is a joke right now. Nothing but choke artists with incomplete games. That's how you get flawed players like Mauresmo and Sharapova reaching number one in the world, and a ridiculously overweight Serena Williams winning a grand slam via superior talent and gradually playing herself into marginally better shape over the course of two weeks.

If a top mens player showed up in comparable shape to Serena at Australia, he would be lucky to win six games total, let alone in a single set.

On the major tennis discussion sites, this has been a prominent topic and even the most balanced posters have been saying equal pay is a farce considering the current level of play. I know that's subjective and not necessarily the prime criteria, but you also have to factor in best of three and not best of five. As a spectator I certainly wouldn't pay equal dollar to watch a women's match.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Since when is it about talent? It's about ratings. More people know Serena...

than Federer. Being, perhaps, the best male player in decades isn't enough.

Kornheiser and Wilbon were talking about how no one knows this guy. Life ain't fair.

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

3. That might be the case in the States

but I think the world wide numbers would tell a different story. Around the world Federer is more popular.

[Captain Hilts]

4. The States is where a huge % of the broadcast revenues come from. nt

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

5. That may be, however its not 100 percent.

BTW, since men's matches last longer, I think NBC and the BBC make more money due to the fact that there is more ad time to sell.

[northzax]

6. and the All England club does, in fact

charge more for the men's final than the women's final (last year Centre Court tickets for Saturday (main event the women's final) were 80 pounds, and the Sunday tickets were 87 Pounds. of course, this is only for the 500 walk ups, who knows what you pay for the reserved ones.

[Awsi Dooger]

7. Mixed reacton

I looked at two polls. On Tennis.com the vote is about 2/1 in favor of the move, but on the message board of tennis warehouse.com it was more than 2/1 against.

Same thing with the players. I saw Tommy Haas speak out against it while some were for it.

One thing surprised me: Wimbledon said 55% of its spectators were female.

Mostly I'm ticked the womens caliber of play has tanked so badly the last few years. I've never seen so many gutless collapses. I wouldn't have had any problem with this a few years ago when the Williams sisters and Capriati and Davenport were playing high caliber matches and Clisters and Henin-Hardienne on the upswing.

One factor I hadn't thought about: the women's players now have an advantage over the men since the best 2-of-3 allows plenty of time to play doubles. Most of the top women do play doubles during grand slams. The men do not, so worn out from one challenging 3-of-5 matches round after round.