Women’s world number one, Iga Świateková, sparked controversy over the inequality between men’s and women’s tennis at the start of the US Open. The American Championships is the only Grand Slam where women tennis players play different balls than men. According to the Polish player, the lighter balls spoil the quality of the game and complicate preparations for the tournament of tennis players from Europe.
Ega Švetik | Photo: Rob Prang | Source: Reuters
While men use the extra balls designed for the hard courts at the US Open, women play the regular task balls, which are more suitable for clay. They are lighter, fly faster, and can have less predictable aerodynamics.
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“Honestly, I think they’re horrible,” Sweetick said with a smile. at a press conference. “After three more challenging matches, it started getting easier and easier. Towards the end of the match, you could no longer serve at 170 kilometers per hour, because you know the ball will fly just like crazy,” Bulka continued.
He is not the first to open the topic of different balls in the US Grand Slam tournament. In addition to other tennis players, he was, for example, Craig Tyzer, the coach of the former world number one Ashleigh Barty. The US Open is the only tournament the Australian has not won in her recently ended career.
“The US Open needs to change the ball for the women. It was the only tournament we had to change the type of racket so he had at least some control of the ball. It’s very light. If the ball stays the same, it’s very light,” T said in January. No player like Ash will ever win the tournamentyzzer tennis grand .
Last year’s Grand Slam culminated in a surprising women’s final in which 17-year-old Emma Radokoan won the playoffs against another teen and then 73rd in the WTA rankings. Laila Fernandez. “When the ball is like that, it’s not surprising,” Tyeser said somewhat sarcastically at the time.
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According to Światek, lighter balls result in lower quality of play. “We can’t really relax our hands with these balls. There are a lot of players in the top ten who don’t like it. We definitely make more mistakes and it doesn’t look better.” For example, highly-rated American Jessica Pegula proved right, which Under them it is possible to observe a greater number of double defects.
“Also, these balls are not available in Europe. When we buy them in the store, they are very different from the tournaments. So when I train with the US Open balls in Poland, I train with the men’s balls,” Swiatkova adds of Wilson products at the US Open.
So why are the balls different? “The reason for playing a regular rotation ball is to reduce potential injuries to the arm, shoulder, elbow or wrist. We will continue to monitor the situation and discuss it with the athletes and experts. We have noticed that an increasing number of players are willing to switch to the over-the-counter type of duty,” the WTA said. ESPN.
“Fifteen years ago, it was clear that women often had elbow injuries from heavy balls, so they changed it to a lighter one. But I think now we are so physically ready that it won’t happen again.”
