"If women compete against men, women would never win a tennis tournament" - Navratilova on gender equality in tennis

Friday, 23 December 2022 at 20:30

Updated at Thursday, 20 February 2025 at 19:53

byErik Virostko

Martina Navratilova engaged in a discussion about men and women in tennis, claiming women would never win a single event if they competed with men.

There is a reason why men and women compete in different categories in the vast majority of sports. Men have a certain biological advantage, which would make it unfair for them to play against women.

Thanks to that, tennis fans get to enjoy tennis on both the ATP and the WTA Tours, which means the sport has even more variety and interesting players on both sides of the sport.

Still, there are some who argue that women could compete against men, even though many successful female players have said that they wouldn't be able to challenge any of the ATP players.

Serena Williams famously said that "men's tennis and women's tennis are two completely different sports." She said she would lose 6-0, 6-0 to Andy Murray, and Martina Navratilova agrees with her.

The former American player recently tweeted that women wouldn't be able to win tournaments if they competed against men.

"If women compete against men, women would never win a tennis tournament. In tennis, no woman is better than all men while many men are better than all women. Now what?"

One passionate social media user claimed that women have beaten women before. The user also claimed that the reason for women not being able to challenge men was that women's sports were being "underfunded."

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"Women have beaten men in tournaments. You didn't, but others have. And we don't know that "many men are better than all women" because women have historically not competed in the same numbers, and women's sports are underfunded. You're essentializing a social phenomenon."

Navratilova quickly hit back at those claims, explaining that no woman ever managed to beat a man who would be ranked inside of the Top 100.

"Thank you for explaining tennis to me. To say you are delusional would be an understatement. No woman has ever beaten a Top 100-ranked man. Your argument is just wrong. Bye now. I am done with your name-calling and nonanswers."