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Women get equal play but not play time at Wimbledon

By Tara VanDam / July 12, 2015

In 2007, Wimbledon became the last of the four tennis Grand Slams to award equal prize money to women and men. However, the play time on the main courts is far from equal. At Wimbledon this year, women got just 38 percent of the assignments to Centre Court and No. 1 Court. That rate is different from the other Grand Slams where the split is pretty much equal between men and women. Who gets on which court is up to tournament schedulers. The top players want to play on a Grand Slam’s two main courts, which each have more than 10,000 seats. That’s where the most fans get to watch them and where journalists and broadcasters focus their attention. Court counts is only part of the problem though. Court time is a further reason why men are hogging the Wimbledon spotlight. Men’s matches, on average, take longer because men play best-of-five-sets while women play best-of-three at Slams.

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