Martina Navratilova: belief

Transcript context

…I guess one justification for a different pay scale for men and women in the tournaments is the difference in games they play for finals, three games for women, five for the men. Could you comment on that? Three out of five sets. Yes, they do that in every round. They’ve been doing that forever at Wimbledon. Then the other slams caught up. Then some men’s tournaments were three-out-of-five finals, but the rest of it was two out of three. Then they realized it just takes too much out of them. So all the tournaments now are two out of three except in the Grand Slams, and that’s three out of five. Women — they were holding that against us, actually, when we asked for equal prize money. They said, “Oh, but you only play two out of three, and men play three out of five.” And we said, “We’ll play three out of five.” “Oh no, no, no, no. We don’t want you to do that.” [laughter] So there’s that. We offered. I think the men should play two out of three, but that’s just me. That’s another story. Also, they found that until they slowed down the grass at Wimbledon, which was the last tournament that finally gave us equal prize money, the ball was in play longer in the women’s matches — in two-out-of-three-set matches — than the men’s matches, three out of five. But you don’t get paid for quantity, you get paid for quality. Actually they did studies. Most people came to Wimbledon — they’ve done questionnaires — most people came to watch men, but then when they were leaving, they actually enjoyed watching the women more than the men. It depends on who you watched that day, whatever. But the whole point is that we contribute equally to the success of the tournament. We’re willing to play three out of five, but they didn’t want us to do that. It’s silly. I think the men should play two out of three. Because both men and women play, they should be paid the same. End of story. It’s the right thing to do, by the way. [applause] They were using that with the McEnroe also, that he does longer matches. He does women’s matches. I wanted to do the women’s final, but he’s doing the women’s final. You don’t get paid because you talk longer or whatever. I’m willing to do men’s matches, but they don’t let me. [laughs] So there’s that. On Tennis Channel I’ve done a bunch of men’s matches and it’s a lot of fun. Next question.…

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