Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams has accused the tournament organizers at the All England Club of “gender inequality” after being made to play on Court 18.
Venus, the No. 8 seed, struggled throughout her second round match against 20-year-old Greek Maria Sakkari but eventually managed to pull off a 7-5 4-6 6-3 victory. This, however, didn’t stop her from disapproving of the “bias” concerning court scheduling.
“I’m willing to play anywhere, any time. If all players have to play outside, all players should have to play outside,” the 36-year-old was quoted as saying by The Sun.
“But there shouldn’t be exceptions or any inequality to it,” she continued. “It’s not the ideal schedule for the women. We’d like to see equal amount of matches.
“We don’t want more, just the same amount, that’s all. I just want equality for men’s and women’s matches. That’s what I’m unhappy about. I’m sure that the WTA supervisors have done their best to try to make the schedule equal.
“But also the All England Club has to have a culture where they want to have equality, as well. They need to want to pursue that.”
Venus is scheduled to get back to Court 1 on Friday for her third-round match against Russia’s Daria Kasatkina.
Less about disrespecting Venus and more about disrespecting all women, schedulewise, constantly. Which isn’t better. https://t.co/27ba0AOiGr
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 29, 2016
The last time Venus Williams played a singles match on court 18 was in 1999 against Anna Kournikova. #Wimbledon
— Matt Dowell (@TheMattDowell) June 30, 2016
