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Clearly, Wimbledon Is Sexist For Wanting to Display the Most Interesting Matches

Jul 1, 2008, 3:05 PM UTC

In this morning’s Daily News, Filip Bondy accuses Wimbledon of being a “hopelessly sexist, good-old-chaps institution.” While this may or may not be partially true, the reason for his rage is just ridiculous. He’s upset because neither of the Williams sisters nor Jelena Jankovic were scheduled to play on Centre Court or Court 1 yesterday. So too is Daddy Williams, as is to be expected, who used awkward mid-90s slang in explaining himself:â†µâ†µâ‡¥“Wimbledon did a bomb job on it,” Richard Williams said, after both his daughters had advanced in straight-set victories to the quarterfinals. “They’re not putting Federer out there. Venus is a major-league draw here. Why put her on Court 2?” â†µâ†µLet’s take a look at who played on the main two courts yesterday, shall we? â†µ

â†µâ†µOn Centre Court, in order, were Roger Federer-Lleyton Hewitt then Svetlana Kuznetsova-Agnieszka Radwanska then Richard Gasquet-Andy Murray. Okay, so we have the greatest player ever vs. extremely popular, once great player; two women, so that decision’s clearly not “hopelessly sexist”; the match of the tournament, a five-set thriller featuring Murray -- Britain’s great white hope (would you expect Roddick to play a round of 16 match at the U.S. Open on a side court?).â†µ

â†µâ†µAnd on Court 1: Nicole Vaidisova-Anna Chakvetadze then Mikhail Youszny-Rafael Nadal then Marat Safin-Stanislas Wawrinka. So, that would be a women’s match (again); the second best player on earth; 28 year-old Safin who was once No. 1 in the world, and whose run is possibly the most intriguing story of the tournament. â†µ

â†µâ†µThey did feature two women’s matches on the main courts, so is the issue that Wimbledon is sexist, or that they just featured the wrong women’s matches? I’ll go with the latter.â†µ

â†µâ†µAnd for the record, Serena and Venus play(ed) on Centre Court and Court 1, respectively, today. â†µ

â†µâ†µ(Ed. Note: Please excuse our tennis post that didn’t involve beautiful European women or various British mockeries. It’s a painfully slow day/week.) â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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