French Open’s decision not to seed Serena could be catalyst for change
The French Open's decision against giving former world number one tennis star Serena Williams a seeding has sparked anger around the world.
When Williams took time off to have a baby she was number one, but under the ruling she will return to the French competition as number 454.
Under a rule established by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), players who are out of the game due to injury or pregnancy for a minimum of six months are allowed to keep the ranking they held when they went on leave.
But the decision of whether to give that player a seed remains up to tournament organisers.
The WTA said it would consider reviewing its rules, in a move that may prevent this sort of thing from happening again.
Any tweaking of the rules would come too late for Williams this time around, but many hope it could help trigger a deeper conversation, and even prompt real change for professional female athletes.
Williams returned to the professional circuit in the United States six months after giving birth to her first child.
However, this will be her first appearance at a major since winning last year's Australian Open.
Nicole Pratt, a former Australian pro tennis player and now head of Women's Tennis, said seeding was a "bit of protection" for players to save them from facing off against a high seeded player early in the draw.
"As it stands now, she could draw the number one player in the world at the moment," she said.
"I think it's very important seeding … for arguably one of the greatest female players of all time.
"The benefit of being seeded is that she won't play another seed until probably the fourth round."
The decision announced by French Open organisers that they would stick to current WTA rankings has not gone down well with many observers.
"At the end of the day the grand slams do have the digression to give a seeding," Pratt said.
"Wimbledon have pretty much demonstrated that over the years, and the French Open have chosen not to exercise their ability to give Serena a seeding.
"If I was in Serena Williams' shoes I would find it very disappointing."
Hope for change
But there is some hope that Williams' profile could be what helps to bring about change within the sport.
The WTA released a statement saying it would review its existing rules to extend protections to include a player's seed up to a certain level.
However, any rule changes would not come into effect in time for Williams.
"The rule is currently under further review as part of our 2019 rules process," the WTA statement said.
"We remain committed to evolving with the needs of our players and are very supportive of those players returning from maternity leave to the tour."
Pratt said the sport had come a long way in regards to recognising females engaging in professional sport, and the fact it was their full-time job.
She said there were even cases where some sort of child care was provided.
"That's a really important topic for the general population, let alone elite athletes," she said.
"So I think there's a number of different areas like child care, like some type of financial payment if they are out of the game for a period of time and the protection in regards to that."
Codes 'should follow netballs lead'
Former Australian netball captain turned sports commentator Liz Ellis has hopes Williams' story could help to highlight some important issues within the sporting industry.
"I think we've got a long way to go before we get women to an equal playing field," she said.
"But I think this is a really interesting moment in time for professional sport and women's professional sport in particular.
"It brings into play the fact that now women are earning good money from playing their sport, whether it's tennis, netball, cricket — they're going to start playing for a lot longer."
She said the big difference between female and male sporting professionals was that men could "really start a family whenever they like" without it affecting their sporting career.
"Being a mother, it does affect your sporting career — you obviously can't play too far into your pregnancy depending on the type of sport you play.
"I think this is something that all professional sports leagues that contain women have to address."
Ellis said while things were different when she was playing netball, things have changed significantly and she was stunned other codes had not followed netball's lead.
In netball, a player is given special provisions for maternity leave and on her return to the sport, top teams will pay for a player's child and a carer to travel with her to avoid separation.
"Certainly when I was playing you almost didn't allow yourself to think about having children while you were playing, because there wasn't the assistance available," she said.
She said the mentality when she was a player was that if you decided to take time off to start a family, there were thousands of players ready to take your place.
"But now I think making a decision around that is a little bit easier for players now," Ellis said.
Ellis now has two children — but she has spoken openly about her own fertility difficulties.
She said that was an issue that could not be ignored by athletes and the sporting groups that support them.
"You still have to think about the fact that your body will change as you have children," she said.
She said people needed to speak more openly about the fact that the longer an athlete puts off starting a family, the higher the chances they would deal with fertility issues.
"The career of sports women are now stretching into their mid-30s — you start to affect the ability of sports women to be able to have children after their careers because you actually run out of fertile years," she said.
"It certainly impacted me after my career."
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