Pro Tennis Is Sexist, But It Pales in Comparison to Soccer – Slate Magazine (blog)

Serena Williams called Moore’s remarks “very much mistaken and very, very, very inaccurate,” pointing out that the women’s final at the U.S. Open sold out long before the men’s final did. (Djokovic must have omitted that data from his analysis.) On Sunday, Moore said that Williams, “arguably the best female player of all time,” has elevated the game of women’s tennis. But to get there, Williams and her sister have had to fight attitudes like Moore’s, in addition to some of the most blatant sexism and racism the sport has seen. Williams just ended her boycott of Indian Wells last year, 14 years after she was booed from the court with racial slurs; and in 2014, the head of the Russian Tennis Federation called the Williams sisters “brothers” who were “scary” to look at. Though Venus Williams was instrumental in forcing Wimbledon to pay women and men the same, female tennis players still make an average of 23.4 percent less than their male counterparts, a gap that widens in middle- and lower-tier tournaments.