Former pro Marion Bartoli rips Tsitsipas for comments on women's tennis

Stefanos Tsitsipas had an interesting take at the Miami Open saying that he would love to see women play Bo5 matches at Grand Slams but that comment has not found approval amongst his colleagues.

The first player to publicly comment on it was Naomi Osaka who criticized his stance while also saying that maybe he would like to play nine sets. Now former player Marion Bartoli took exception to the comments with a special highlight towards the reasoning behind the statement. Tsitsipas reasoned that because women are paid the same amount at Grand Slams maybe they could also play bo5 admitting it would be fun.

Bartoli countered with:

“It exasperates me because it is only four tournaments in the year. So yes, these are tournaments that the general public follows and knows about, but there are still only four tournaments in the year. We have to stop saying that we are paid exactly the same all year round. First, it is not true. Secondly, on the Grand Slam tournaments, when we look today at the attraction of the public for women or for men, we can clearly see that Roger (Federer) hardly plays anymore, that Rafa plays from time to time but still much less."

She further said:

"The attraction for the women's level is real and there are as many spectators, if not more. We are in a sport business that the intrinsic value of a women's match has become the same financial value as a men's match, that's the reality. To reduce that in hourly volume by saying: 'We play longer in terms of sets so we must be paid more', these are childish debates that we come out with every two or three years as soon as a man is touched in his ego to see that there are fewer people to see his match than for a women's match. Really, it's starting to piss me off."