America’s tennis star
Jessica Pegula is hoping that WTA will
do much more to promote women’s tennis in order to have equal pay rates across
the sport.
There have been voices of notable individuals in the past who
showed their concern about the pay rate disparity between men’s and women’s
tennis. In the recent past, at least in the major events, there has been a
constant effort to ensure equal pay rates for both categories.
However, that is not the case in other WTA and ATP events
where the pay rate is very different. Pegula, who is now one of the most famous
tennis players in the women’s singles category, while talking to Forbes,
believes more is needed to be done to have a better chance of having an equal
pay rate.
“Yeah it's crazy time,” she said. “Women’s tennis is a huge
sport for the highest-paid female athletes. But at the same time, the pay gap
is still very big. We always talk about how it is equal in the slams but that’s
four tournaments a year. It is not equal in a lot of the other tournaments.
“I think we need to do better while marketing for our game which
hopefully I think the WTA started a new partnership with a private equity
company that’s going to come in and kinda take the commercial side and
hopefully revamp the marketing. I think getting more stories out there of all
the incredible players we have.”