For long, a woman’s worth in sport was a function of whether she could match a man or be better than him. It was no different in tennis, where benefits and privileges weren’t shared equally. At the 1972 U.S. Open, the men’s singles winner took home $25,000. The women’s winner received $10,000.
This was part cultural, with the general attitude being that women were inferior to men, and part economic, with the differentiating factor being the number of sets women played in a match vis-à-vis men: three to five.
Cut to the present, women’s tennis is a beacon for the rest of the sporting universe when it comes to gender equality. The four Grand Slams — the crown jewels of the sport — pay men and women equally, and in December 2022, the Forbes list of highest-earning women athletes featured seven tennis players in the top 10, with Naomi Osaka, a four-time Major winner, and Serena Williams, a 23-time Slam champion, ranked one and two.
