“Men Shouldn’t Play Best of Five Until Quarterfinals” – Donna Vekic

World Number 24 Donna Vekic recently reflected on the pay gap between women and men’s professionals. Presently, the Grand Slams do reward them equally, but the other events on the tour still practice pay disparity between the two domains of the sport.

However, now Vekic feels that might be balanced as she strongly believes WTA and ATP will be unified. “Yes, it bothers me,” Vekic told Podcast Inkubator to on the topic of pay discrepancy. 

“I am on the player’s board in WTA so we have talked a lot about that. I think it will go in a positive direction now since I think ATP and WTA will merge. The merger will help with prize money but it’s not that simple.”

Donna Vekic opposes best of five sets format

Vekic made a point that the debate regarding equal pay raises all because men playing five-sets at Majors, and work for more hours than their female counterparts. So hence, they deserve more.

“Men often have comments like “We play best of 5, why would we have same prize money? – no one wants to watch you for five sets [laughing]. I mean it’s ok if we watch Roger and Rafa in Wimbledon final for five sets – that’s cool,” she added.

However, she highlighted that men shouldn’t have the best of five-set matches until the quarterfinals since it becomes boring the earlier rounds. Also, she isn’t a big fan of marathon matches, since most of the time it leads to delay in the schedules.

“I remember last year before the first round in US Open I had the third match on the court after 11 am and I started my match at 9.45 pm. Two long five-setters were played before my match – and I went crazy,” she said.

“I think that men shouldn’t play the best of five until quarterfinals where it really starts to become interesting. Everyone says that when the match goes to the 5th set that’s irreplaceable but I am not so sure.”

Also Read – “Maria Sharapova Beat Me Badly” – Donna Vekic Opens up on Practice Match Before Australian Open 2020

The Croatian tennis star began the year 2020 by reaching the quarterfinals in Adelaide. She lost to the eventual finalist Dayana Yastremska and later concluded her Australian Summer with a the third-round loss in Melbourne against Iga Swiatek.