Proverbial

About a month ago, Wimbledon organizers announced that, after years of refusing to do so, they’d finally caved in to public pressure and this year’s tournament would have equal prizes for men and women. Last friday, it was time for French Open organizers to say this year they’ll have total parity among players.

Which, of course, is not true. In fact, what they’re all saying is that they’ll pay women more than they pay men. After all, last time I checked, even in the finals women only played best-of-three matches, whilst men have to endure extenuating best-of-five matches throughout the whole tournament (the notable exception, of course, being the U.S. Open).

This way, you have men and women getting paid the same thing, but the only way that could possibly be equal pay, would be for the female champion to give up one set on each of her seven matches, while the male champion would have the almost impossible task of winning seven matches without giving up one single set. That’s the only way they’d have both played 21 sets. And all that not taking into account who has a bigger audience.