The French Open starts next week. The top tennis players from around the world are currently playing tune-up events in Switzerland and France, or they’re already in Paris, practicing on the clay. Serena Williams spent Saturday at Windsor Castle, watching her friend Meghan Markle marry a prince. Serena and Alexis were invited to everything, and they partied and had fun. And then on Sunday, Serena was in Paris, practicing at Roland Garros, in what will be her first major tournament after giving birth last year. If you’ve been following Serena’s interviews or her HBO docuseries Being Serena, you know the extent of her postpartum complications. Serena went through multiple surgeries and she was hospitalized for weeks because of blood clots and related complications.
On Monday, the French Open organizers announced that Serena, currently ranked #453 in the world, would not get any kind of protected seeding at the tournament. It was up to the organizers – they could have given her a protected seeding if they wanted to, but they didn’t. A protected seeding would have meant that Serena would have been seeded at or close to her ranking when she went on maternity leave. She was #1 in the world after she won the Australian Open while pregnant. A protected seeding would mean that she wouldn’t have to play other top seeds (the top 32 players in the world) in the first few rounds.
All of which has led to a major conversation about maternity leaves and how women are “punished” for having babies and wanting to return to their careers. USA Today had an op-ed about it this week, which seemed to jump-start a larger conversation about the need to enable and protect moms who want to return to their work after giving birth. Serena has a lot of backup from other players, tennis commentators and sports writers – even Maria Sharapova (Serena’s mortal enemy!) said flat-out that Serena should have a protected seeding and there needs to be a rule change about it. The current world #1 Simona Halep also says Serena needs a protected seeding. Elina Svitolina and Jelena Ostapenko are pro-protected seeding for returning moms as well.
So is Serena really being punished? In Indian Wells and Miami, Serena went out early and the tournaments were the poorer for it, because there were so many high-profile match-ups in the early days of the tournament (and so few high-profile match-ups later on). The tournaments should want a prestige player like Serena – who is arguably one of the most famous female athletes of all time – to stay in competition for as long as possible. Other people suggested that perhaps the rule should just be “unlimited wild cards,” which is close to what the rule is now, meaning that returning moms can simply enter any tournament with a wild card regardless of their ranking, but that they have to play unseeded (or whatever their current ranking allows).
I don’t know. I can actually see the argument against protected seedings, just because it would be legitimately unfair to the players in the top 32, who depend on their seeding to get through the earlier rounds. But then again, those are the same players who don’t want to meet an unseeded Serena Williams in the first round. It’s a larger discussion and I’m glad Serena is basically the WTA’s test case.
When the #FrenchOpen begins from @rolandgarros on Sunday, 3-time champion @serenawilliams will be unseeded. Is she being punished for having a baby? @rennaestubbs and @brookebcnn volley the topic around 🎾 https://t.co/KEWazUdEce pic.twitter.com/VrMNQqkrfh
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) May 22, 2018
👀 on Chatrier…
Welcome back to our three-time champion @serenawilliams!
Watch the full practice: https://t.co/8ms6uyLFOT pic.twitter.com/hTIz7edIug
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 20, 2018
Photos courtesy of WENN, Pacific Coast News.
This is tough.
So much of her job is based on her physical health… which clearly took a hit from the complications of giving birth. And in every other workplace, while your actual job is protected through maternity leave… that does not mean that you don’t miss out on special projects or opportunities while gone. And when you come back.. for better or worse.. you have to prove post baby that you are still up for the same tasks as before.
This is obviously something men don’t deal with after having a baby and sheds a light on the issue.. which is great. But- as in my own experience as a working mother- I am not sure the best, or fair, or equitable way to handle maternity leave.
She’s clearly being punished, as are the rest of the seeded players. As it stands, a top player could see Serena in the first round and then Azarenka in the second. That benefits no one, certainly not the players, the Grand Slams, or the fans. Having a baby should not put a player in the same boat as someone suspended for a positive drug test. The tour is shameful.
I hope it is not because of another reason….
A few days ago Francoise Abanda in Canada had her take on being relatively unknown and being the top seeded female tennis player in the country.
Abanda is the 128th ranked player in the world. It’s perfectly normal that she isn’t well-known.
She actually frequently gets invited to big TV shows, is sponsorised by a major bank and her tennis federation pays all of her bills. She can’t ask for more given her current status.
She isn’t being personally attacked; they do this to all pregnant women and mothers. It’s why Steffi Graf retired (she wanted to start a family) she knew she couldn’t get back to the top after having her baby at 30 or 31.
In Canada, when you go on mat leave (for a year!), your company has to giarantee your job, or a comparable one, when you return. Sounds like protected seeding to me.
Just because someone got a chance to be on the top 32, does not men they get to stay there. They are only there because Serena was off having a baby. Now she’s back, and should have the same benefits as when she left.
If she’s not up to par, she will go down in the rankings and need to climb back up. That’s fine. But she should return where she left. My 2 cents.
@Larak I agree on all points
But Serena isn’t employed by a company is she? It’s tough but seedings are based on performances over a period and if she hasn’t played in that period she can’t (within the rules) expect to have a high ranking. It is no different than if she had been out injured for a year. I am sure she will climb back up the rankings soon.
That’s only in the case of an employer/employee relationship, though. Serena is not employed by tennis association – this would be more analogous to a situation where someone is a freelancer/independent contractor/business operator. If someone runs a business and they decide to take a year off, they may not have all the same clients as they would when they choose to go back to work – that’s kinda the same thing here; she decided to take time away, and during that time, she may have lost professional opportunities for it.
I don’t know anything about Tennis.
However, I can see why women wouldn’t come back if they lose everything they worked for.
Not for the same reason (thankfully!) but if memory serves, Seles’ ranking wasn’t protected when she had to go out after she was attacked, and her seeding when she did come back was lower than when she left.
Think the first poster summed up the difficulties and nuances pretty well.
I actually would completely prefer Serena to not have a protected ranking. We as fans should be clamoring for her to have a tough draw and play as many top players as the draw allows. What better way to prove that she is still the best in the world after becoming a mom than to demonstrate that her seeding is irrelevant to her consistently spectacular performances? I don’t at all understand the other side who want her to avoid playing anyone of note till the 3rd round. I want to see Serena challenged at every stage not just the later rds
Yes exactly,how amazing is it going to be when Serena wins match after match. It’S going to be epic.
She is not being punished. They are just giving her no consideration. As I understand (and I may have missed something) a protected ranking/seeding is only applied for a certain time upon return so any perceived advantage is limited. A player has four tournaments or whatever it is to prove themselves. This sounds fair so I don’t see what’s the problem.
The WTA have been very slow on this. Serena’s not the first major test, they had the opportunity to address this with Azarenka and they should have.
As for the tournaments wanting “name” players to be in longer… yes, it’s important but it has to be balanced by the fact that this is a job for players. I mean wouldn’t everyone want a hand to make it through to later rounds? It certainly pays better. Does this mean tourneys are picking winners and losers? Should Serena have lost to the opponents she did play? If it was someone who thought she should have been protected, did they go easy on her? Hell no. Should Serena have played some smaller tournaments to get back into match condition? Probably. That’s not punishing, that’s just sensible. But this is a conversation well over due and hopefully some decisions will now be made.
She didn’t just have a baby but other health complications. Considering that, I don’t see anything wrong with not protecting her seeding.
Rafael nadal had an actual tennis-related injury that kept him away from courts for almost a year. When he came back, the French Open did not give him a protected seed even if he had won the turnament 8 or 9 times (at this point).
I don’t see why there should be a special treatment for Serena. Super famous players like her, Federer or Rafa already got a lot of advantages at it is. If she is the best, she will win anyway and the public will see amazing games during the first week for once.
Kaiser, Kaiser, Kaiser….. when oh when are we going to discuss Alexis’s short pants and Stars and Stripe socks that he wore at the wedding??!!!??? (Yeah, I’m the one who tweeted you about it in real time.)
Players get badly injured all the time during tournaments, so ‘workplace injuries’ in their ‘workplace’, and they don’t get protected seeding when they return. If they did the whole ranking system would pretty much be rendered pointless.
It’s not a normal workplace, it’s never been set up remotely like one. It’s competition, and if you aren’t competing for whatever reason, the competition moves on without you.
Serena has had protected seeding at a few tournaments now, enough to make serious inroads if she was playing well. So far she mostly isn’t though, and the way it’s going I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes her til next year to get back into form. So how long should protected seeding last for her? It can’t just be extended and extended until she’s playing like she used to.