Monica Seles: Female young tennis players get judged on how they look
The former world no. 1 Monica Seles believes young female tennis players have been prejudiced for years. Speaking to The Telegraph, she said: “Young ladies in tennis have always been judged on how they look and it is still the reality. It is better than 10 and 20 years ago but it still has a long way to go."
For Seles, staying fit and eating healthy is important: "I've learnt over nearly a 10-year period to have a positive relationship with food. When I started talking about it, so many athletes reached out to me some from my own sport. Just looking at them, you never would have thought, I realised it doesn’t matter how we look or what image we project, I just hope another young lady coming into the sport would know it is OK if they struggled with their weight or eating disorder and to open that dialogue. Even now when you a look at the support team in players' boxes, you see mostly males. It is still a struggle; we have to take small steps. It would be really nice to see more female agents and trainers."
She also said, “The really important thing is women helping other women, but when I was playing, it was so competitive. It was very difficult to be friends when you are competing for a grand-slam title. I am very proud that when we retired, a couple of the players that I competed against - and where there would have been a sense of ‘I don’t like her’ - have now become my friends. Now we have almost a sisterhood - we've realised we had a lot in common because we never went to a normal school or college.”
Seles had recently said Novak Djokovic could play at the highest level for five more years.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2FnR4zl
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