PUTTING IT INTO PERSPECTIVE

In 1991 the Great Jimmy Connors made the Semi's of The US Open , if you know anything about the game of Tennis , this feat is rather remarkable , it will probably never be repeated , Jimmy was 39. That same year another all time great Martina Navratilova lost in the final of the Women's event , aged 34 , another performance that may never  be seen again , after all , Tennis is a 'young' person's sport isn't it ?  In 1992 Connors finished the year ranked number 84 , not bad for an 'old' bloke, Navratilova number 5.
So it was in some Promoter's wildest dream that these two should play each other in a battle of the sexes singles match , but with a slight twist in the rules . Martina would receive half a Double's alley extra for her shots , this is a fair bit of extra room for your opponent to cover , especially if they are 39 years of age . Connors was still confident that he would win , despite the extra room that he had to cover, so much so that he waged 1 million dollars on himself to win with the loss of no more than 8 games , pressure was on .....
The highlights of this match are on 'You Tube' , it really is a great match , some of the points are brilliant , Connors however came away with a win and a few dollars extra in his pocket , as well as of course the match prize money . Jimmy cut it fine though on his punt with a bookie , he lost 7 games , no pressure at all , he had a game up his sleeve to cash in his million dollar bet.
This on the other side of the coin was a chance for female tennis players to try and prove that they were up with the standard of the men , but Event Organizers knew for a fact that an even playing field between a man and woman would not in fact be even at all . Even at age 39 Connors would've had way too much power and all round ability for Martina on a normal sized court .
It is not unrealistic to think that the guy ranked 1000 in the world would have too much fire power for any woman in the World's Top 10 . In fact if you set up a practice session between the guy ranked 1000 and any Top 10 male player you wouldn't see too much of a difference in technique ability , until they commenced point play , then the differences would become evident. The difference between men and women tennis players however is enormous , it's why more battle of the sexes matches aren't played , it's a foregone conclusion that the man would win . It's not a sexist comment by any means , but a factual look at the difference in how hard the ball is hit , take this example . One of the State's best male player's was once asked to hit with a top 5 women's professional for the Hopman Cup in Perth . This guy didn't even have a World ranking , if he did it may have been somewhere around 2000 if he was lucky . He not only matched it with her in the drills but also won their practice set comfortably ........ Just a few more facts and figures that should be taken into perspective when considering just how good professional Tennis players are to keep winning , day in , day out.....