THE libbers for lob equality once risked their wooden Wilsons so prize purses for women would mean more than a nice clutch bag, so gender equity would include the right to a shared pot.
Amid the oestrogen revolution, the women's tennis tour evolved ahead of society as Billie Jean King made feminism cool, as Martina Navratilova made muscle acceptable, as Chris Evert made an empire out of a playing career.
They were Oprah before Oprah. They were tennis stars who, in their own ways, nurtured the tour so well, with such a progressive spirit, it is the only women's league where the money measures up to the men.
But what happens to the tour when financial freedom opens an escape hatch? At 23, Kim Clijsters doesn't need tennis any more. She doesn't need waking up with an aching body after another night spent away from her fiance, in a hotel room that looks exactly like the last.
Ranked No. 5 on the WTA Tour, with $17.74 million in career earnings, plus millions more in endorsements, Clijsters chose to retire on Sunday, with an explanation straight off the menu of the
Happy Days diner.
"Right now, it is time for a new life," Clijsters wrote on her website. "Time for marrying. Children? Time for cooking and playing with the dogs."
She would be a lousy bra burner. But Clijsters' decision to opt out of the playing tedium is not an aberration these days; it is a tour trend. Some high-ranked players have retired — like Clijsters and Lindsay Davenport — while stars from Justine Henin to Amelie Mauresmo, from Martina Hingis to Venus Williams, have alternately disappeared during their careers in a game of Where's Wally?
Injuries, players claim. Lame excuses, the suspicious say.
But what women's tennis may reveal is the same socially sanctioned element found throughout society, where mums with MBAs prefer to run play groups instead of boardroom meetings. In this circle, it's OK to jump off the fast track for the mummy track or laugh track. Whatever makes a woman of means happy.
Money hasn't fuelled the competition in women's tennis. It has served as a disincentive to play when the women reach a point where they have earned enough to buy contentment.
"Money is important, but not the most important in my life," Clijsters wrote. "Health and happiness are so much more keys to life."
This is the right philosophy, isn't it? And yet, one woman's Zen is another loss for the tour. Tournaments and majors played without long-time rivals or a consistency of stardom or familiar faces puts women's tennis at risk of vanishing through irrelevance.
Top players on tour can afford to be ladies of leisure as they parachute in and out of the schedule to indulge in their cultural gender differences with male athletes.
Salary figures and contract numbers define many male pros. To them, wealth is a measure of their self-worth.
Money as a reflection of manhood is not a hard and fast rule. There are exceptions. Bjorn Borg retired early after growing weary of the tour grind and privacy intrusions. But disillusionment on the women's tour is a flu bug passing from one star to the next.
In tennis, 23 is the new 40. It is midlife crisis time when players start to ponder the loneliness of the tour, develop outside interests and realise they have been at the game since age 10, maybe six. The guys often start the game later and enter the scene with less attention. Females experience their first pimple, first love and first break-up, all before the public.
The scrutiny is endless: Is Serena Williams' caboose on the loose? Was Jennifer Capriati's mood too dark? Did Hingis break Sergio Garcia's heart? Just what did the effervescent Clijsters once see in the boorish Lleyton Hewitt?
The constant prying is enough to make a girl run for the exit.
"No more gossip or lies in the newspapers," Clijsters explained.
Mental burnout is nothing new to tennis (as in Andrea Jaeger at age 19) and careers have been cut short by injury before (as in Tracy Austin at 20). Clijsters cited herself as a victim of both.
She longed for more time to plan her July wedding to Brian Lynch, an American-born basketball player in Europe. She pined for the days when she could slide on the court into a full split — a trademark of her Silly Putty elasticity — without her back locking up.
Tennis has a history of devouring its youth. But never have so many stars seemed so eager to fade out, whether into retirement or an extended leave.
There is no glass ceiling on the women's tour — the revolutionists in pleated skirts made sure of it — but there is an open window.
Who knew liberation could one day threaten the tour?
http://www.wtaworld.com/showthread.php?t=297753&highlight=selena+roberts
It was really nice.
