Just 5% of women’s players at Wimbledon have a female coach. The tennis tour wants to change that

HOWARD FENDRICH

ON the day of the Wimbledon singles draw, Billie Jean King and other founding members of the women’s professional tennis tour gathered 5 miles away at a London hotel to mark the 50th anniversary of a meeting that led to the formation of today’s WTA.

That long-ago moment was prompted by frustration at being paid far less in prize money than the sport’s male athletes. For all of the progress since in that area, there remains an aspect of tennis in which gender equity is nowhere near being achieved: coaching.

Of the 128 women in the singles bracket at Wimbledon, which ends this weekend, just six work with a female coach — roughly 5%. All of the coaches for men were men.

“Terrible. Extremely disappointing,” King, the International Tennis Hall of Fame member and rights advocate, told The Associated Press when asked about the scarcity of female coaches. “It’s about society, absolutely. You have