“If it happens once, it’s a mistake. If it happens again, it’s a choice.” It seems sports channels are not taking any hint from regular outbursts about an issue plaguing the broadcast industry. During the last few days, various broadcasters have come under fire from tennis stars and fans alike for choosing to avoid WTA games in favor of what they think will attract more viewers. Recently, Sky Sports put Alexander Zverev in the promotion image of one of their shows. The image didn’t feature any Women’s tennis player participating in the ongoing Hungarian Open.

The 22-year-old Eva Lys was not overly amused with the Sky Sports poster featuring Zverev and no women’s tennis player. She was never going to take it lying down. Lys is set to play semifinals against Diana Shnaider at the Hungarian Open and she made sure to remind the channel of their big mistake before her match began. Taking to the X, the German took a sharp yet cheeky dig at the broadcaster as she wrote, “And what about the WTA250 in Budapest? We women put in just as much effort 😉@SkySportDE.”

This is not the first time that Eva Lys has quoted a post from Sky Sports on X. She was very appreciative of the network last year when the news surfaced that the London-based media house secured the rights to broadcast the entire ATP and the WTA tour, giving their viewers the option to watch both men’s women’s tennis players throughout the year. “Thats a step into the right direction. Cool,” Eva Lys tweeted, quoting the news.

Women’s tennis has evolved over the years with significant increments in the prize money of the WTA events. However, it won’t be an overstatement to say that women’s matches still don’t get as much media coverage as men’s matches. Interestingly, discrimination and bias against women’s tennis had laid the very foundation of the WTA.

Why was WTA started?

WTA came into existence to give women’s tennis an equal representation in the circuit, similar to their male counterparts. While the ATP players attracted the most attention from tennis fans, Billie Jean King found an interesting way to advocate equality with the famous “Battle of Sexes” to attract tennis fans to women’s tennis.

This was not all. Other than the fans, female tennis players were awarded less monetary rewards than their male counterparts. They got relatively less sponsorship and broadcasting time as well. But, it all changed with time. Now the Grand Slam offers the same prize money to both male and female players. Broadcasting has also been on a similar footing, however, the equal exposure is still not there.

Tennis has certainly come far away from the small beginnings. Hopefully, the anomalies will also fall into place sooner rather than later, and young players like Eva Lys won’t have anything to complain about.