‘Clearly Doesn’t Understand’ – When Martina Navratilova Took a Swipe at Novak Djokovic Over His Honest Opinion on Gender Pay Gap

American tennis legend Martina Navratilova has always been a supporter of equality in all aspects. The former tennis player has worked hard and raised her voice for social rights and equality. However, in her own field, tennis has a bias toward male players when it comes to payment. However, the prize money now is equal for both male and female tennis players in Grand Slam. But a few from the tennis fraternity still believe that male players deserve more.

Back in 2016, Star tennis player Novak Djokovic expressed similar views. Here’s how Martina Navratilova responded.

Martina Navratilova schools Novak Djokovic

Since Wimbledon in 2007, all the Major events have equal prize money for both genders. However, the 21-time Grand Slam champion, Novak Djokovic, had different ideas about it.

He said, “Male tennis players should be awarded more prize money than their female counterparts.”

Further, he added. “ATP world should fight for more because the stats are showing that we have much more spectators on the men’s tennis matches. I think that’s one of the reasons why maybe we should get awarded more. Women should fight for what they think they deserve and we should fight for what we think we deserve.”

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However, the American was not happy with the Serb’s comments. She said, “Novak Djokovic, as much as I love him, clearly doesn’t understand why, when women and men play in combined tournaments, they must be paid equally. I thought we settled that issue years ago.”

While the Grand Slam events have equal pay now, the payments for WTA and ATP events are still different. All Navratilova wants is to have equal pay for the combined events as they are doing the same job.

Navratilova attacks the Italian Open for unequal pay

In yet another incident, earlier this year, the 18-time Grand Slam champion called out the organizers of the Italian Open for the disparity in the prize money. The 65-year-old took to her Twitter account to write about the same.

In her tweet, the American shared a tweet from British sports broadcaster David Law comparing the prize money. “The prize money in Rome stinks! Whatever happened to equal money in combined events?!?” she wrote.

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Prize money for the winner in the men’s category was 835,335 Euros, while for the women’s category it goes down to 33260 Euros only. It’s almost 2.5 times lesser comparatively.