Dubai: The last is yet to be heard on the issue of gender equality in sport — as Alize Cornet’s incident in the US Open will testify.
Cornet was handed a code violation by chair umpire Christian Rask for taking her shirt off briefly during her first round loss to Johanna Larsson.
The Frenchwoman, fondly remembered in Dubai for her semi-final win against top-ranked Serena Williams in 2014, briefly showed her innerwear in front of the spectators at Flushing Meadows after realising that she had put her shirt on backwards. The 28-year-old, who lives in Nice, deliberately turned away from television cameras before going ahead with the change of shirt along the baseline.
- Dr Paul Davis | Chairman of the British Philosophy of Sport Association
Rask pulled up the current world No. 31 for “unsportsmanlike behaviour” in what was a clear case of over-reaction, but Cornet was inundated with support from all quarters with many coming down heavily on USTA officials for being sexist.
The next day, the defensive US Open authorities issued a statement trying to clear the air by saying that “all players (men and women) can change their shirts when sitting in the player’s chair”. The sight of a barebodied Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic for changing is quite a common sight in the game. The statement further voiced regret over the incident and “clarified the policy to ensure this will not happen moving forward”.
The WTA was the first to react by calling the code violation “unfair” as it was not based on a WTA rule, simply because the governing body for women’s tennis doesn’t have a rule against a change of attire on court. The WTA further cleared the air by stating that “this code violation came under the Grand Slam rules” and that “Cornet did nothing wrong”.
Fellow tennis professionals stepped forward to back Cornet. “Alize came back to court after 10-minute heat break. Had her fresh shirt on back to front. Changed at back of court. Got a code violation. Unsportsmanlike conduct … But the men can change shirts on court,” former tennis player and Andy Murray’s mother Judy said on Twitter.
Fellow players Casey Dellacqua and Bethanie Mattek-Sands also expressed their frustration on social media.
Earlier this year, French Open officials banned multiple Grand Slam champion Serena Williams from wearing her catsuit outfit. Wimbledon, too, had ruffled a few feathers after referring to female players by their marital status. Even earlier, women had to wage a grim battle before finally getting equal prize money since 2007 at the four Grand Slams.
There is no doubt that these views are severely outdated and flawed. Perhaps the observation made by Dr Paul Davis, Chairman of the British Philosophy of Sport Association, sums up the situation we are in at the moment perfectly. “The Grand Slam sex-based sets disparity is a cultural tradition that degrades women, as it reinforces the false stereotype of female incapacity and in turn a fast-dying notion of femininity, which is starkly challenged by what women do on the tennis court and in other sport. It should be ended,” he has observed in one of his studies.
Time alone will tell when such disparity will end!
