WTA vs ATP

This past spring semester I interned at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina. The Family Circle Cup is the largest Woman’s Tennis Association in the world featuring top players from the Williams sisters to Stosur. In the video in class today he talked about the great Billy Jean King, she is a past FCC champion and there is even a main court named after her. Billy Jean was the founder of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) in 1973.  The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) was founded in 1972 for male professionals. Since the 1970s there has been constant competition and clash over talent.  Last year while at the cup Sam Stosur withdrew from her match against Angelique Kerber because of an injury. The same day Roger Federer played a match against Rafael Nadal with an injury. The match was supposed to be a super exciting between the two rivals, but with the injury the match was mediocre.  That day a tennis reporter Damien Cox tweeted “ Fed battles thru injury on a day two women’s matches were won by walkover. Tells you all you need to know about the two tours”.  This tweet was then replied to by an even bigger name Jon Wertheim a reporter for Sports Illustrated. Wertheim tweeted, “Federer limps around court while ticker reminds us two other dinged up top players simply withdraw”.  These two highly acclaimed figures made comment like this not even knowing the players records.  If they did some digging they would know that both Stosur and Federer are tied with two injury walk offs their entire career. I felt this situation was very similar to what was discussed in class. Women are constantly criticized for being inferior to men in the sports arena.