Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Having followed tennis for many years now, I would have to agree
    that the coverage of women's matches in recent years has left a
    bit to be desired.
    
    However, I would not attribute this to any bias against women's
    tennis.  When the women's field was a bit more evenly matched, I
    saw a good deal more of women playing.  The dominance of Navratilova
    and then Graf sort of left folks with the 'ho,hum...I wonder who'll
    win _this_ time' attitude.
    
    That men's matches run to the best of five and women's to the best
    of three accounts for a substantial time differential as well.
    
    Well I remember run out to Alexanders for cooking supplies just
    as Ms. Graf began a final match last year only to return 27 minutes
    later to hear her apologising for ending it all so quickly.  I was
    not amused...neither were the sportscasters.
    
    As long as there are more real contenders on the men's circuit, we'll
    see more of them.
    
    When Graf loses a few instead of doing walkovers we'll see more
    of the women.
    
      Ann 
    

The timing of the women's final was particularly frustrating because it
coincided exactly with coverage of the Belmont Stakes. I certainly agree that
the women's matches were glossed over. I'm a bit hesitant to derive the cause
from this effect, since I've seen other tournaments with better coverage of
the women. Perhaps the view (accurate or otherwise) was that there was more
depth in the men's half this year? (Everybody expected Graf to just be
a walkover - that'll learn 'em.) Between Sanchez and (what's her name - the
girl from Yugoslavia - she's 15, so I think "girl" actually applies here)
who made it to the semis, plus Sabatini, it looks to me like there's going to
be more competition in the women's half in future tournaments.

The more cynical view, of course (and no cynic was ever pleasantly surprised),
is that they show what gets the best ratings, and have learned that men's
tennis draws better than women's tennis.

    
    Women's final coincided with baseball games, and the Belmont stakes?
    
    The game was shown on British TV apparently live in mid afternoon.
    With the five hours difference to the US Eastern seaboard that means
    early morning there...
    
    News to me that they play baseball at 9am. Or stage the Belmont.
    
    Personally I was T-ed off because they pre-empted the first test
    and the start of Le Mans to show the tennis, but c'est la vie :-)
                                                     
    /. Ian .\
    

    One of the reasons for the reduced coverage of women's tennis is simple
    economics. More men than women watch sports. Men usually prefer to
    watch other men play tennis. This is a major reason for the admittedly
    lousy coverage of the women's side of the tournament.
    
    This is one of the problems with the media. They usually play to their
    largest audience- in this case men. So women end up getting
    shortchanged. I guess more women have to watch sports to get a better
    share of coverage.
    
    I also agree with the stance that the relative lack of competition on
    the women's side exacerbates this problem.
    
    The Doctah

    
    If you like watching women's tennis you should move to Britain.
    The TV mogul's consider tennis to be (and audience research support
    them) almost entirely watched by women. Women's tennis totally
    dominates coverage, and major matches are shown in full, pre-empting
    anything that might be scheduled to follow if they run long.
    
    Wimbledon is coming up, and the TV ads for it would give the impression
    that men will vacate the house for a couple of weeks whilst it is on...
                                                                  
    Personally I wish they'd show Real Tennis occasionally.
    
    /. Ian .\
    

    I watched a lot of the tennis coverage.  Unfortunately, I have to
    say that I was *not* disappointed to see more of the men's matches
    than the women's.  The women's matches that I did see were boring!
    I am somewhat disappointed that NBC didn't choose to show the women's
    final live, but quite frankly everyone expected Graf to do a less
    than 1 hour walk-over of her opponent after Sabitini was eliminated.
    IMO, the reason that Graf didn't win was because Sanchez managed
    to make the match last long enough that Graf ran out of steam.
    
    If you watch ESPN regularly (I do), you learn that they cover quite
    a bit of women's tennis.  Their announcing staff is also better
    than NBC's, for both women and men.  I was quite frankly disappointed
    with all of NBC's coverage, and wished they had left it on ESPN.
    
    Alison

re .5  What do you consider to be real tennis? 

re .4  It's funny how people seem to think that it's a fact that
       more men watch sports then women.  I'd like the actual statistics
       on that.  I'd also like to know statistically how many men vs women
       watch tennis.  I'd bet that the audience would be pretty much about
       even, if not more on the women's side.  And if that is so, then 
       according to your theory, there should be more coverage of women's
       tennis than men's.  Just like there is more coverage of men's college
       basketball than womens (which I would say is perhaps the reason why 
       there is less women watching sports- you get your choice of men's basketball,
       men's baseball, men's hockey, men's soccer, men's horse-racing, and let's
       not forget- unequal coverage of women's tennis, women's golf, and oh yeah
       the final game, if you are lucky enough to have ESPN and want to stay up till
       2 in the morning to watch it, of the NCAA women's college basketball final).

       Now why, would you think- do men watch more sports then women?

Terri

    Real Tennis is a game, just as lawn tennis is a game. It is played
    in a court that models the original court on which it is played.
    The word 'real' translates as 'royal' not as the antonym of 'false'
    
    Real Tennis is a game of strategy that I enjoy playing, and watching.
    Lawn tennis is a bore, especially when played on hard courts where
    it tends to reduce itself to a boring baseline lob session.
    
    Real tennis is several centuries older than lawn tennis (there is
    a reference to it in Shakespeare for example, I believe).
                                                                  
    /. Ian .\

    Ian,
    
    There is a mention of tennis in Chaucer, which is considerably 
    earlier than Shakespeare.
    
    Bonnie

    
    Ah yes, there is I believe a reference in Chaucer. Real tennis is
    a *very* ancient game. There is also the historical incident when
    a French king (Philip V ?) delivered a considered insult by sending 
    the English king (Henry II ?) a box of tennis balls (implying that 
    he was too immature for the real tasks of kingship, and better suited 
    to idling away his time playing tennis with his courtiers).
    
    I had the [miss]fortune to attend a school that had a Real Tennis
    court, as well as a number of Fives courts. These were considered
    reasonable lunchtime pursuits... (don't ask me to explain Fives
    - its a bit like squash played by hitting the ball with the palm
    of your hand rather than a racquet...)
    
    The neighbouring girl's school had a couple of Lawn tennis courts
    of course, but we didn't get to use them...
                                           
    Real Tennis of course bears much the same relationship to Lawn Tennis
    that Billiards bears to Pool...
    
    /. Ian .\

    <--(.10) 

�    ... (don't ask me to explain Fives
�     - its a bit like squash played by hitting the ball with the palm
�     of your hand rather than a racquet...)
                                         
    I b'lieve we call that (not unreasonably) "Handball", Ian.
    
                                             =maggie

re: .10

the English king was King Harry V.  Agincourt was more than 
repayment for the insult...