Rosemary Casals - Fights For Rights of Professional and Women Players

Fights For Rights of Professional and Women Players

Despite her victories on the courts, Casals continued to fight tennis traditions on several fronts. Amateur tennis players (those who are unpaid) had always been favored over professionals (those who were paid). Because many tennis players came from non-wealthy backgrounds, they were forced to accept money in order to continue playing. This, in turn, made them professionals and prevented them from entering major tournaments that allowed only amateurs to play, such as Wimbledon. Fighting against this discrimination, Casals worked for an arrangement that allowed both amateur and professional tennis players to compete in the same tournaments.

Casals's next challenge was to overcome the vast difference in prize monies awarded to male and female players. Even though they worked just as hard and played just as often as men, women earned much smaller prizes. In 1970 Casals and other women threatened to boycott traditional tournaments if they were not paid higher prize money and not given more media attention. The ruling body of U.S. tennis, the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA), refused to listen to their demands. In response, the women established their own tournament, the Virginia Slims Invitational. The attention generated by this successful tournament quickly brought about the formation of other women's tournaments and greater prize monies for women.

Read more about this topic:  Rosemary Casals

Famous quotes containing the words fights for, fights, rights, professional, women and/or players:

    And do you count for nothing God who fights for us?
    Jean Racine (1639–1699)

    And do you count for nothing God who fights for us?
    Jean Racine (1639–1699)

    I wish to reiterate all the reasons which [my predecessor] has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights of the defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international matters.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    ... all professional ideologies are high-minded. Hunters, for instance, would not dream of calling themselves the butchers of the woods.
    Robert Musil (1880–1942)

    Sentiment is the mightiest force in civilization; not sentimentality, but sentiment. Women will bring this into politics. Home, sweet home, is as powerful on the hustings as at the fireside.
    J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)

    People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.
    Don Delillo (b. 1926)