Retired tennis star Daniela Hantuchova has slammed “spoiled” WTA stars who need to earn as a lot cash as their male counterparts. The previous world No 5 claimed that they couldn’t criticise the prize cash on provide as they aren’t “working from 4 within the morning someplace within the mines”.
Whereas prize cash on the Grand Slams has been equal for a number of years, there’s nonetheless an enormous disparity between the funds on provide at common occasions on the ATP and WTA Excursions. The WTA has already introduced a pathway to drag parity with the ATP by 2033 whereas stars proceed to talk out on the problem.
Venus Williams has lengthy been an advocate for equal pay and performed an instrumental function in Wimbledon providing the identical quantity to women and men. Maria Sharapova additionally just lately voiced her considerations over the disparity within the excursions regardless of being retired. However not everybody agrees with their struggle, as one other former professional in Hantuchova stated it “is what it’s” relating to WTA gamers’ prize cash.
“It appears to me a bit like being spoiled,” the Slovakian star advised the Livesport Every day podcast. “Particularly on the ladies’s circuit, the place the prize cash is what it’s, and the ladies are undoubtedly not working from 4 within the morning someplace within the mines.”
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A seven-time title winner, Hantuchova additionally stated that they weren’t in a position to condemn the cash on provide as a result of it was coming from the match. She continued: “It’s robust, however we by no means allowed ourselves to criticise as a result of we knew the cheques we had been getting had been due to the match.”
The 40-year-old was extra forgiving when it got here to a different difficult facet of the tennis tour – the gruelling schedule calls for. “Relating to journey and the locations wherein WTA tournaments are performed, quite the opposite, I agree with the gamers,” she added.
“From this standpoint, tennis is essentially the most demanding sport that exists. For me personally, it was one of many causes I give up. The physique may not deal with the time variations, I stored waking up out of the traditional rhythm, it was unhealthy. I advised myself that it wasn’t even well worth the cash, that I’d relatively be nicely at 60. It was over the sting.”
Whereas loads of gamers will echo Hantuchova’s considerations in regards to the scheduling, many gained’t be completely satisfied along with her feedback about equal pay. This yr alone, there have been large discrepancies at even the largest tournaments on the calendar – together with the latest 1000-point occasions in China.
Talking at a Bloomberg convention, Sharapova identified the distinction in prize cash for the ATP gamers in Shanghai and the WTA athletes in Beijing. “There’s a males’s match truly nonetheless occurring in Shanghai with the winner’s prize examine of £990,000 ($1.2 million). In the identical week, there’s a girls’s match in China with the winner’s examine at £99,000 ($120,000),” she stated.
The WTA has already dedicated to providing equal prize cash over the subsequent decade. Earlier this yr, the ladies’s tour introduced that WTA 1000 and 500 mixed occasions would attain equal prize cash by 2027 and single-week WTA 1000 and 500 occasions would do the identical by 2033.
