You may not like women’s tennis but I am sure you still would show it respect. You would acknowledge that the women players still work hard on and off the court. Every tournament has respect for women’s tennis and...
You may not like women’s tennis but I am sure you still would show it respect. You would acknowledge that the women players still work hard on and off the court. Every tournament has respect for women’s tennis and there are 57 events where women players compete in 32 countries.
The four Grand Slams are among those and they are the cornerstones of the game. It is here and at the year-end championships where the women players shine the most and are best featured. Don’t you think so?
Well maybe at three of the four Slams. The way things have been handled you would want to question the feeling of the US Open after its incredibly disappointing attitude towards Samantha Stosur of Australia and Angelique Kerber of Germany in the first women’s semi-final at this year’s US Open.
Have you ever heard of this at one of the majors? The schedule was initially announced and Stosur and Kerber were on at 6pm New York time but here’s the cruncher, on a “court to be determined”. Can you believe that? A court to be determined for a semi-final of a Grand Slam? I have been covering Grand Slams for pretty much 30 years and been to 130 Slams and I have never heard of such a thing, of such disrespect and such rudeness.
That court allocated was later pinpointed to the Grandstand court which is only the third court at the National Tennis Center. What an insult.
I believe the WTA protested and so did Tennis Australia but the tournament would not budge from its decision. The second semi-final between Serena Williams and Caroline Woznaicki was scheduled for 8pm on Arthur Ashe Stadium, just where it should be and where the other one should be played. This is the penultimate round. The schedule was not done because rain was in the forecast; the weather had nothing to do with it.
There is no valid enough excuse for that to be the case. No other Grand Slam would do anything like this.
The US Open has made a dog’s breakfast of the scheduling. I mean to put Serena Williams on as the second night match after a men’s match in her first match back to the US Open after two years is pretty questionable. To put Stosur on Ashe and then take her off in one of the earlier rounds is pretty rude.
They just have not got it right. I am fully aware that match scheduling is a nightmare to do. I have witnessed enough of them but the US Open is totally in a state of helter skelter with this. For a start, get rid of the terrible format that currently exists where the first round is played across three days. Do that and the rest of the schedule will fall into place like everywhere else, unlike the disjointed schedule that currently exists. Shame.
Lodge your thoughts and comments about this here on wearetennis.bnpparibas . We want to know what you think about this decision.
