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It’s that time again. We’re at Roland Garros, our second tennis major of the year. The French Open is heating up here at Tickets of America, and a few things come to mind -getting in touch with our existing French Open clients and my not so good speech class experience. With the announcement a few weeks back from French Open officials, there will be equal pay for both men and women champions starting this year. Times have definitely changed.

A few years back while at speech class at the University of Maryland, I decided to tackle the equal-pay issue in tennis tournaments. At that time, there was an uproar due to the difference in pay. The men’s champion was paid roughly 30% more than the women’s champion.

The assignment in my speech class was to take a stance on a current issue, any issue. Well, as a sports fan, I decided to cover a sports-related theme and so, I chose this one.

My stance was that men truly deserve to get paid more than women, as it had been up to that point. The argument was that men had to win more sets to take a match (3 out of 5), “working” longer than women, who only needed to win 2 out of 3 sets to come out victorious. Also, at that time, men’s tournaments were a lot more competitive and more attractive than women’s. It was proven by the many players playing at a high level: Sampras, Agassi, Kafelnikov, Gustavo Kuerten, Patrick Rafter, Goran Ivanisevic, on and on. It was also proven by the multitude of fans who came to see them play.

Attendance was at one of the highest levels during that time some five years ago. But as time has passed by, men’s tournaments have lost quality players and competition has dwindled to a few if not a couple of players, Federer and Nadal. On the other hand, we’ve seen the women’s tournaments gain a vast number of fans, with the resurgence of the Williams sisters, Sharapova, Henin, Dementieva, Kuznetsova, Mauresmo, etc. Now the tables have turned, and women are the ones bringing more fans to the stadium and scoring bigger TV ratings.

Back then while at speech class, I didn’t take into consideration that 80% of the class was women including the professor. Needless to say, after giving my presentation, I was butchered with questions, including discriminatory comments towards me. Bad topic to go after with those circumstances. I still thought the pay was fair at that time. Now I can look at it the same way and say that it’s well deserved to bring women’s pay up.
I give the French Open committee props for their decision…it should be a great tournament this year.

If you’re looking for French Open, Wimbledon, US Open, or any other tennis tournament tickets, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at 1-888-383-1515…gotta go…quick update - Nadal just won his first round match….plus tard!